Average
by Death2Deadlines
Summary: Oneshot collection - Shikamaru meets a girl he can actually hold a civilized conversation with.
1. Fangirlitis

Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

000

**7&8**

"Okay kids, today we're going to meet the class one year above you! Since summer vacation is almost— yes, I know, _I know_ you're excited— LET ME FINISH TALKING!— you guys are going to see a little preview of what you're doing next year. Now, everyone line up! Wait, Naruto— no running in the hallways! Chouji, you're supposed to eat during breaks— GIRLS! NO MOLESTI— er, I mean, I'm sure Sasuke-kun would appreciate it if you respected his personal space…"

Eventually, Iruka managed to herd his pack of little demons out the door and down the hall. Much too busy managing the miniature typhoon of midgets, the academy teacher had no way of noticing a certain pineapple head missing from the crowd. Back in the original classroom, Shikamaru slept, dreaming of falling asleep. Which was rather redundant, but not surprising for a Nara. It was a good half an hour later before Iruka noticed he was one brat short. Panicking, he did a hasty roll call, discovering that the resident lazy ass was AWOL. Explaining the situation to the other teacher, he was just about ready to grab one of the prepubescent devils and wring their little necks with nothing but a—

"Um, sensei, I could go fetch him for you… if you would like," a voice snapped Iruka out of his dark musings. He looked down to see an academy student who wasn't from his class, nothing very eye-catching about her appearance besides the fact that her hair was tied into two round buns at the top of her head. He stared, wide-eyed, for a moment. There was a student in front of him, speaking politely, offering to help a teacher who she hadn't even met until today. She was, for lack of a better word, _normal_. Brown hair, brown eyes, average height. While his class was made up of the angsty little brother of a mass murderer, the most hyperactive jinchuuriki he'd ever had the pleasure of meeting, and the heir to practically every single ninja clan of Konoha. Iruka felt like throwing a tantrum. Why did he get all the odd ones?

Iruka gave her a teary approval, watching her leave the classroom forlornly. Meanwhile, Tenten walked away hurriedly. She'd just seen a grown man _cry_. Was it something she'd said?

The main reason she offered to help the sensei was because of the rather disturbing amount of killing intent leaking out of him. Afraid that he would snap and murder everyone in the room, her classmates offered her up as a sacrificial lamb ("It is your pitiful fate to be the one to— " she left before the melodramatic Hyuuga could get started). She trotted down the hallway, arriving at the designated classroom. Poking her head inside, she scanned the seats for the brat who managed to elude his chunin instructor. She soon spotted… a pineapple?

Upon closer inspection, she realized the pineapple was, in fact, a head. The head of the very student she was to escort back, as a matter of fact. As she approached the kid, she realized that he was asleep, as indicated by the rather loud snores emanating from the boy. The future kunoichi scrunched her nose up in disapproval; she never cared much for slackers. Even Lee, despite his… _exuberant_ nature, managed to gain her respect (somewhat) through the fact that he was a hard worker. But she figured she shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

She sighed and shook the boy's shoulder, "Um… hello? Your class already left…"

The boy tossed and turned, mumbling something along the lines of 'troublesome'. Tenten's brow furrowed a bit in annoyance. She shook his shoulder again more forcefully, "Hey! Wake up!"

The boy groaned and blinked his eyes drowsily. He let loose a yawn that could rival an animal coming out of hibernation, regarding her with half lidded eyes. The female academy student found herself reminded of the cat she often saw prowling in the lot beside the academy. It would come and go as it pleased, constantly basking in the sun with a lazy, somewhat endearing expression on its face.

"So… what's your name?" Tenten found herself sitting in the chair next to him. The boy continued to stare with an expression of slight disbelief on his face. She wondered why he seemed so surprised by the fact that she was talking to him. You'd think he'd never spoken to a girl before…

The young girl was partially correct in her assumption. It wasn't that he'd never spoken with a girl before; it was just that he'd never willingly engaged in a civilized conversation with a person of opposite gender. Of all his previous encounters, 90% of them were of his mother yelling at him. 9% was of Ino yelling at him. The other 1% was… some random girl he couldn't really remember the face of yelling at him. So you can see why the young Nara was shocked by the female speaking to him in a perfectly casual manner in a voice that did not threaten to rupture his eardrums.

"… Nara Shikamaru," he replied hesitantly. He felt completely out of his element, treading in unknown territory. Was she trying to lull him into a false sense of security and take him by surprise? Did she, dare he say it, actually have the _brains_ to back up her feminine schemes? Shikamaru wisely kept his typical lazy drawl out of his voice for once, he had to be careful with this one.

Tenten, for one, was unaware of the paranoid thoughts going through the Nara's head. She happily introduced herself, glad that there was someone who could just reply without some crazy self introduction. Seriously, you'd be surprised by the number of people who ended up spouting their life story when all she wanted was their _name_ ("I'M GONNA BE THE GREATEST HOKAGE THAT EVER— ambition is to kill the man who slaughtered my— w-want to live up to my father's expecta— I WANNA MARRY SASUKE-KUUUUUUU—"). They managed to engage in a fairly normal conversation, typical small talk such as 'Does your sensei regularly display homicidal tendencies' and 'Yes, on a daily basis'.

Shikamaru actually found himself relaxing in this girl's presence, kind of similar to how he felt around Chouji. He didn't feel the need to pretend to be listening while actually staring at the clouds out the window. His voice eventually returned to his normal, lackadaisical drawl. Tenten didn't seem to mind that much though. They talked of each of their class's troublesome teachers, hyperactive overachievers, and emotionally stunted ice cubes.

Shikamaru found himself thankful that Sasuke at least didn't actively preach about things like 'fate' and 'destiny'.

Somehow, they ended up on the topic of future goals/dreams. Tenten talked about how she wanted to be a weapons mistress and follow her role model, the legendary Sannin, Tsunade. When she asked Shikamaru, he paused to think for a moment before replying:

"I want to become an average shinobi, marry an average girl who isn't too ugly or too pretty, have a boy and a girl, and retire when the girl's married and the boy becomes a chunin." Not really expecting such a… specific answer, Tenten just blinked in response.

"I guess I'd be the perfect candidate for your wife then," she quipped, her voice holding a sort of self-deprecating humor. She meant it as a joke, but Shikamaru seemed to interpret this otherwise. After a few moments of silence, Tenten realized that the boy was actually taking her comment seriously.

Panicking, she tried to discredit her previous statement, "Um— I didn't mean to sound like I'm flirting with you or anything like that, uh, not that you wouldn't make a good husband, I'm sure that— um, that… oh god this is getting awkward…"

Shikamaru just looked at her with a sort of 'dead fish' expression on his face, sighing, "No, I understood what you meant, I was just thinking that you don't really fit the description I gave all that much."

Tenten just stared at him blankly, causing Shikamaru to self-consciously rub the back of his neck, a habit he got from his father, "I just mean that… um… that you're not, well… as troublesome as other… y'know…"

Tenten's eyes lit up in understanding, Shikamaru imagined a figurative light bulb lighting up above her head, "Oh! You mean that I'm not…" her eyes darted from sided to side as if she were being watched. She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "… a _fangirl_."

Shikamaru snorted and started laughing in a very un-Shikamaru-like manner. The female academy student's eyes furrowed in confusion, not understanding what was so funny. "What? It's true! There're so many of them, it has to be a disease! Fangirlitis! They should put up warning posters or something…"

Shikamaru's laughs had died down chuckles by the time he replied in an amused voice, "I guess they would be considered 'average' since there are so many of them." He got a thoughtful look on his face, "Although I'm not sure if it's an actual disease or not…"

"It has to be!" The future weapons mistress proclaimed, "What other reason could explain why they've become so obsessed with those emotionally stunted girly guys? They were perfectly sane when I first met them!"

In face of the undisputable evidence, Shikamaru's analytical mind had no choice but to agree. His young face became lined with worry, "This… this is a serious problem…"

Tenten nodded fervidly in agreement, "Yeah, I know! Finally, someone understands! All my friends have already fallen for it, and I can't find any cure! And… and…" she gulped nervously, "And what if I end up getting it too?"

Shikamaru's eyes widened. He met a perfectly companionable female, only to lose her to the clutches of some mental disease? No way was he going to let that happen! Thus, the two academy students plotted ways to fight back against the forces of male-female attraction. Their hypotheses became wilder by the minute (From bathing in cherry-balsamic vinegar to sacrificing rabbits to some god named Jashin), until Shikamaru finally came up with an idea.

"Wait… so we know that Fangirlitis only appears in children and somehow disappears after they grow up and get married, right?"

Tenten nodded.

"And we also know that all females will inevitably fall for this disease no matter how rational they were beforehand, right?"

Tenten nodded again.

Shikamaru closed his eyes in concentration, bringing the tips of his fingers together in his familiar thinking position. Tenten waited quietly in anticipation, the tension so thick you could cut it with a blunted kunai. Finally, Shikamaru's eyes opened.

"I got it." The young Nara smirked triumphantly. "The cure to Fangirlitis is the commitment to another guy. So all you have to do is choose to marry another male before you go mental over one of the pretty boys in your class."

Despite the ridiculous sounding claim, Shikamaru spoke with utmost conviction, and both academy students honestly believed that they had made the discovery of the century.

Tenten's eyes lit up and her smiled widened to the point where it seemed to go from one ear to the next, "You're brilliant Shikamaru! Now all I have to do is—" Tenten's smile froze and turned into a contemplative frown, "… where am I supposed to find a guy to marry?"

Shikamaru's face mimicked her's for a moment before the idea dawned on him, "How about me?"

The female was utterly shocked by this proposal, "Y-you'd do that? But, there are so many other smarter, prettier— "

"—Troublesome-er girls as far as I'm concerned," the Nara clan heir interrupted her with his typical lazy drawl. "We both benefit in this case. I get a wife I can hold a civilized conversation with and you don't go bat-shit crazy from some mental disease."

Tenten blinked, "What's 'bat-shit crazy' mean?"

Shikamaru shrugged, "Dunno. Heard my dad say it before when he was talking about this lady who was trying stab someone with a dango stick."

Tenten nodded. The term seemed to fit.

"But I think we're too young to _actually _get married…" Tenten mumbled, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully.

"Then we can get engaged." At the girl's quizzical expression, Shikamaru elaborated. "We basically promise we'll get married when we get older."

"Cool! So, do we get to do, like, a blood ritual or something?" Tenten asked excitedly.

Shikamaru gave her an odd look, "Er… no. We just exchange rings."

"Oh… okay then." She seemed a little disappointed. But she quickly forgot about it and moved onto the next issue on their agenda: rings. "I don't really have a diamond ring or anything in my pocket right now…"

"Doesn't really matter what it is as long as you can wrap it around a finger," the male academy student replied.

The two ended up spending the next ten minutes searching for objects to substitute as rings ("Ooh! How about this?" "… I think wearing a shuriken as an engagement ring would be kind of painful…"). They eventually settled on two pieces of string, courtesy of Tenten's hair ties. It was a nondescript shade of red, thick and durable so it wouldn't break too easily.

Tenten, whose long brown hair now fell freely down her back, beamed. She held up her left hand with the red piece of string tied around her ring finger, "I, future Mrs. Nara, pledge to become a wife who doesn't nag!"

Shikamaru smiled appreciatively, "And I promise to prevent you from contracting Fangirlitis."

And the girl gave the boy a quick peck on the lips to seal the deal. Shikamaru just blinked confusedly before shrugging it off as he figured this was typical married couple behavior.

000

Yoshino gave her son a critical once over, as she did everyday after he came back from school. She was about to mentally check her son off as fine before she noticed a small piece of red string wrapped around his ring finger. She blinked. She didn't remember him wearing that when he left for school in the morning…

"Shikamaru? What are you wearing on your finger?" The mother inquired in, for once, a voice that was neither scolding nor harsh. Her lazy son just glanced down at his hand and looked back at her with a disinterested gaze.

"It's to ward off Fangirlitis," he stated bluntly.

Yoshino could only stare after her son's retreating back in bewilderment. From somewhere in the living room, she could hear Shikaku laughing his ass off.

000

A/N: I'm not very good with romance, but I wanted to try writing about a non-canon couple ^^". Updates will be erratic, I'm not really known for my consistency = =…


	2. Morning

Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

000

**9&10**

Shikamaru groaned as the sun peeked through an infinitesimal crack between the clouds. He was in his perfect cloud-watching spot but unfortunately, today was not the perfect day for cloud-watching. It was one of those days when the clouds seem to meld together until the sky was nothing but a milky gray blanket of depressing fluff, and the clouds have, for all intents and purposes, _become_ the sky as far as the young Nara was concerned. But now the weather seemed bent on keeping him awake when all he wanted to do was _sleep_ at this ungodly hour.

The academy student lifted his hand up in a futile attempt to block out the sun, light reflecting off of the small metal band around his ring finger.

Tenten's hair ties were very durable pieces of string, but in the end, they were still pieces of string. They held on valiantly, fighting against the wear and tear of the typical academy student's life, but eventually, they wore out. Tenten just bought another pair of hair ties to replace them at that point, but the problem refused to be resolved. If they didn't end up breaking, there would be some other unfortunate accident forcing the two pre-genins to discard the pieces of string. One such occasion was when an irate bulldog seemed set on gnawing off Shikamaru's fingers. Another was when Tenten tried a new trick with her kunai, slicing open her hand and bleeding all over the makeshift engagement ring in the process. And another when Kiba thought it would be funny to push Shikamaru into a muddy swamp full of discarded toiletries. And when Tenten punched her class's Hyuuga-genius in the face out of annoyance, thereby getting _his_ blood all over the poor, poor piece of string.

After a significantly large amount of hair ties, the duo noticed a trend they should have noticed quite a while ago. The future married couple decided it was high time to fix the issue before Tenten's wallet went into cardiac arrest. The two subsequently 'borrowed' a couple of old kunai from the academy and went to a blacksmith. Tenten was a close acquaintance of the man and he happily let her use his tools. The almost-kunoichi melted down the projectile weapons and expertly hammered them into rings (whilst imagining the piece of metal as Neji's face and cackling like a madwoman). Shikamaru wondered if the rings were cursed, considering the malignant thoughts present throughout their creation. The metal bands were made up of a durable stainless steel but didn't surround the finger entirely. A small gap was left so that the rings could be stretched wider if need be, preventing any fingers from being amputated.

Shikamaru groaned as he sat up, joints popping stiffly from the exposure to cold concrete. Why did it have to be so _cold_ in the morning? Shikamaru was not a morning person, and the freezing early hours of the so-called Land of Fire only served to further irritate him. So why was such an anti-early-bird bothering to wait outside in the first place? A certain bun-haired fiancée…

It all started when Tenten tried to convince Shikamaru to join her on her early morning exercises. And when Shikamaru flat out refused.

"Why not?" Tenten had asked.

Shikamaru's intelligent reply: "It's too troublesome."

Tenten was quickly catching on to Shikamaru's mannerisms, and she had heard that particular excuse _very _often. She also learned that the woman of the Nara household was Shikamaru's mother, known to be a rather… forceful woman (Shikamaru would grumble that that would be like saying Tenten only _kind of_ disliked Neji.). Tenten deduced that Shikamaru's aversion to early hours was most likely because of his mom.

"… well, if you woke up early, then you could leave early and sleep later so your mom can't nag you in the morning." Tenten reasoned. Shikamaru had blinked at her response, unable to disprove the logic behind her words. He didn't really look forward to waking up early, but he ended up complying. The day he got up from bed of his own free will, his mother had interrogated him for half an hour, convinced that he was an enemy spy, and demanded for her son-who-would-_never_-wake-up-of-his-own-volition-even-if-Orochimaru-was-doing-the-macarena-on-the-front-lawn to be returned to her.

Shikamaru actually found these early morning escapades… well, not as troublesome as he initially thought they would be. It wasn't like Tenten forced him to run a thousand laps around Konoha or anything like that…

Shikamaru was broken out of his musings quite violently when something collided with his hip bone.

"What the—?" He landed with a dull thud, the back of his head meeting concrete. That was definitely going to bruise…

He identified the object, or rather, person, who crashed into him and was now lying on his stomach by her frantic babbling, "My eyes! My eyes! Gouge 'em out, oh dear god I think my brain just imploded…"

Shikamaru propped himself up on his elbows, staring bemusedly at his fiancée's hysterical ranting ("Oh the horror! The green spandex bushy caterpillar-y horror!"). The unofficially engaged Nara contemplated on asking what was wrong, but took one look at his fiancée trying to give herself a lobotomy and decided it would be much too troublesome.

He waited patiently for his companion to stop mutilating herself, and it was a good five minutes before she began to exhibit some sort of mental stability

"… good morning." Tenten croaked, voice rough from incessant jabbering, "… I'm sorry you had to see that…"

He raised an eyebrow, "Do I even want to know what you're—"

"NO." She cut him off before he could finish. "Just don't go to the training grounds or run laps around Konoha in the morning. Or afternoon. Or evening. Or—" Tenten stopped in the middle of her cautionary statement, some sort of horrifying realization dawning on her. "Oh my god they're _everywhere_. How can anywhere be safe when— we have to find somewhere they can't find us or—" the female academy student suddenly whirled around and grasped Shikamaru firmly by the shoulders with a fiercely determined glint in her gaze, "Don't worry Shikamaru, there is NO WAY I'm letting them take away your eyes' virginity!"

The young boy spluttered incomprehensibly, a red tint creeping into his complexion, "Wha—?"

He didn't get the chance to ask her what any of this had to do with the v—vir—virgi— _innocence_ of his eyeballs before she half dragged, half led him to the outskirts of the village. The urban buildings slowly gave way to more natural surroundings and soon, all he could see were the dark browns and greens of the surrounding foliage. She finally stopped at the mouth of a small cave, just the right size for someone to squeeze through.

"Alrighty, into the hole!" Tenten chirped. Shikamaru didn't get the chance to protest before he was shoved through the entrance. The future kunoichi followed soon after and led him by the hand as they made their way through the dark cave… that ended up being more of a tunnel as the lazy ass found himself walking for another five minutes. He was about to start complaining but Tenten spoke before he could open his mouth, "We're here!"

Shikamaru gave her an 'are-you-mental' sort of look (even though it probably wasn't received due to the dim lighting) as she stood proudly in front of a stone wall. She ignored him and fished something out of her weapons pouch, twisting open a small bottle and smearing some of the contents on a watermelon sized boulder beside her. Shikamaru was about to ask if she had taken any illegal substances lately until he started to smell whatever liquid she was using. It had a sort of metallic, semi-sweetish scent… Shikamaru's eyes widened in recognition.

"Tenten, is that _blood_?"

Tenten's head perked up, "Oh! You can recognize it just by the scent? That's so cool, maybe you're some Inuzuka's lovechild!"

Shikamaru ignored her comment on his mother's supposed infidelity in favor of slowly inching away from his fiancée who may or may not be an axe-murderer. "Explanation? Preferably a non-graphic version…" Shikamaru's drawl gained a nervous tone he only used when his mom got _really_ mad.

He could see his female counterpart waving her hand dismissively, "Ah, don't worry about it. It's just something I got from my academy sensei when I _'accidentally' _stabbed him in the foot."

This really wasn't as much of an excuse as it was evidence of a crime, and the young shadow user could literally hear the quotations around "accidentally". He decided to shy away from digging any deeper; Tenten was known to repeatedly harm that one Hyuuga guy in her class anyway, so maybe this was natural behavior… (yeah, who was he kidding).

"As to _why_ you're drenching a boulder in your sensei's blood…?"

She shrugged noncommittally, "I'm not _drenching _it, I'm just putting some of it there so that it recognizes—"

She didn't get the chance to finish as a loud, mechanical groan echoed from the stone wall beside them. A seal array Shikamaru hadn't noticed before started glowing brightly with an eerie blue light as the mass of granite started to slide horizontally and reveal another entrance. The young Nara stood there in shock as Tenten seemed greatly amused by his reaction.

"Well, that was… something."

Tenten's smile was blinding, "I know, isn't it _awesome_?"

Even though he hadn't said anything remotely synonymous to the word awesome, Shikamaru just let himself be led by the hand to who knows where for the second time that morning. He entered a spacious cavern filled with a militaristic atmosphere. Cots were lined up in an orderly line along the sides and flickering lamps hanging from the ceiling exuded a yellowish glow. Shikamaru was dragged off with a dumbfounded expression on his face. For some reason this place seemed oddly familiar…

"Is… this the evacuation shelter behind the Hokage Monument?" Shikamaru asked in a disbelieving voice.

"Wow, you guessed right on your first try! You're such a cute little lazy genius~" Tenten cooed as she affectionately nuzzled his cheek. Shikamaru wanted to point out that she was barely a year older than him, but decided against it, much more interested in knowing _how the hell she was able to sneak into a high clearance ninja facility_.

She pulled a face, "What? It's not like I got into ANBU headquarters or the Hokage's bedroom…"

Shikamaru gave her a pointed look and she decided to get to the explanation:

"Weeeeeell… there was this weapon set I _really_ wanted, and you can only buy so much with half an orphan fund anyway, so I kinda, sorta, _might've_ been mooching off the supplies here so I could buy it without going hungry," At this point, she put on her best I'm-just-a-cute-little-innocent-girl-who-likes-to-stab-people-with-pointy-objects expression. It didn't really help. "So I discovered one of the old entrances to this place; you can get in with just a couple pints of blood—" Shikamaru choked on his spit, "—from one of the people who have clearance to enter, which is practically _every_ ninja in Konoha, and it isn't like I go around stabbing every ninja I meet, it's just that my sensei was being _really_ annoying that day, total coincidence that I needed the blood, and it's not like anyone would believe an _academy student _stabbed a _chunin_, plus, it's really pathetic if their security can't even keep out a couple of brats, and the orphanage is _really _overcrowded and the apartments are _really_ overpriced— "

Shikamaru slapped a hand over her mouth before his ears started to fall off, "Okay. I understand. You can stop talking."

Tenten nodded mutely in response, and the boy decided it was safe to remove his hand. She grinned and dragged him over to one of the cots, plopping down and making him lie down next to her. She pointed up towards the ceiling, "It isn't cloud-watching, but it should be good enough for one day."

Shikamaru glanced up to see the ceiling stretch skyward endlessly, but gradually turn to… glass? His eyes widened as he saw the light from the flames in the suspended lamps flicker and reflect off the mirrors above them. Some of them were tinted softly with various colors, turning the drab stone walls into a brilliant, constantly changing display of light.

"Woah…" Shikamaru wondered how he missed this on the way in… then again, he was a bit distracted by the possibility of having a homicidal fiancée… "By the way, what were we supposed to be hiding from?"

Tenten's nose scrunched up as if she'd smelled something horrid, shaking her head to dispel whatever mental image that had popped up, "I'll get a restraining order if they ever come within a one mile radius of you… oh god I reallyreallyreallyhopethey'renotonmygeninteamI'lleventake_NEJI_justnotthemnotthemnotthem…"

She continued to chant, simultaneously petting the young Nara's head protectively as if he were a million dollar kitten. Shikamaru didn't know when these mother hen tendencies had started to pop up, although the petting felt kind of nice… ish… The pineapple headed boy gazed blearily up at the light show above him, the mixture of psychedelic colors and incoherent chanting in his ear giving everything a sort of dream-like quality…

He quickly fell asleep, completely forgetting that he was supposed to go to the academy that day.

000

A/N: I just discovered that fiancée is for females and fiancé is for males… I guess you learn something new every day XD. I love Neji, but he's just so fun to mess with~ Thanks so much for the reviews! They make me very, very happy :D

EDIT: to Scintazzle - Thank you for pointing that out! My grammar is far from perfect, so I'm glad to be given an opportunity to exterminate a nasty little grammatical cockroach :D


	3. Festival

Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

000

**10&11**

It's commonly said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but Tenten would firmly disagree with that statement. Honestly, a more appropriate saying would be that the way to a man's heart was through his brain. Although this would probably only apply to a certain lazy ass academy student…

Ever since her impromptu engagement to a boy she'd only known for several hours, Tenten had taken every opportunity to observe him. Of course, this was just to get to know him better, it wasn't like she was _stalking_ him… at least she thought she wasn't.

Through her amateur reconnaissance, the female academy student soon realized that while Shikamaru usually had the patience of thousand year old sage, all of that flew out the window at the slightest sign of his ultimate pet peeve: nagging.

Nagging, lecturing, yelling, whining, screeching like a banshee, anything along the lines of, as any typical Nara male would put it, _troublesome_, would automatically cause the lazy genius to direct his attention elsewhere (usually skywards where his beloved clouds resided), summon an imaginary wall of white noise to drown out his or her, but typically her, voice (although this may not be effective against females able to reach particularly high octaves), and put on his most apathetic, I-don't-give-a-crap facial expression (to which the source of annoyance would give an indignant shriek and stalk off to nag someone else). Tenten had aptly dubbed this: "The Nara Defense Mechanism".

So the future kunoichi quickly learned that if you wanted something from the Nara, the last thing you wanted to do was yell at him. And when the pair had their first disagreement, Tenten decided to test out her theory.

"Okay, how about this. If you don't train now, your jonin-sensei will force you to train instead— and don't tell me you don't plan on graduating because I _know_ your mother would murder you if you didn't— and your instructor could end up being some crazy, sadistic, slave-driving— Of course they exist! Remember the dango incident? _THE DANGO! _Yes, you should be very afraid— while on the _other _hand, you could just train with me now and keep the troublesome-ness to a minimum."

Needless to say, she had the young Nara wrapped around her pinky from then on. For every time she wanted something from her lethargic fiancé, she would prepare a perfectly valid argument, to which the victimized Nara would have no choice but to comply as his mind was too logic-oriented to refuse. Of course, arguments such as: "Listen to me or I'll kick your ass into next week" were a big no-no since this would only make him grudgingly obey the first time and avoid you like the plague from then on (see: Yamanaka Poisonous Mushroom Incident).

So, as a result of previously mentioned reasons, we happen upon the lovely scene of a young couple attending a festival. It didn't take much to convince the young shadow user to attend this time around, as Tenten only had to note how his mother would force him to go with Ino instead.

"Shika! Look, they have one of those shooting range thingies!" Tenten pointed at one of the stalls ecstatically, dragging Shikamaru towards it before she'd even finished speaking. She wore a simple dark red kimono (When they saw it on display at a store, Shikamaru commented quite morbidly on how it resembled the color of blood. She enthusiastically bought afterwards.), while the pineapple-headed boy wore a light gray yukata with the Nara clan symbol sewed on the back (Which Tenten thought was a cancel sign). The red and gray streaks weaved through the crowd of other festival participants, unashamedly bumping into legs and splashing mud onto other people's clothing.

"Ne, ne, ojii-san! How much for one round?" Tenten rushed up to the counter where middle-aged man regarded her sourly.

"Oi! It's 'o_JI_-san', not 'o_JII_-san'! I'm not that old! For your information, I'm still at the youthful age of—"

"ARWhi**Pfwi**ngeCKF**JRz**OQW—!" Tenten let out something unintelligible and violently slapped a hand on the older man's mouth. The poor man could only let out a muffled yelp of surprise while trying to pry off the abnormally strong preteen.

Shikamaru gave him what would've been a pitying expression were it not for his slouched posture and overall uncaring disposition. He decided to impart a few words of wisdom to the fellow male. "You probably shouldn't say the 'Y' word when Tenten's around…"

The man, who had managed to free at least a part of his mouth, replied gruffly, "'nd vat vould dis subposed 'vhY' vord BE? All I'bd said wuz youthf—"

"SILENCE! Thou shalt not speak of The-Word-That-Must-Not-Be-Spoken!" The crazed academy student redoubled her efforts in sealing off the man's mouth but suddenly froze as if a fire alarm had gone off in her head, "Oh god they're already here. Quick! Under the counter!"

With one of her buns starting to unravel, Tenten unceremoniously dragged the poor stall-owner under the table with her. Shikamaru lazily crawled in after them, acting as if this were an everyday occurrence. The three sat mutely: one with boredom, one with paranoia, and the last one with the inability to breathe due to the paranoid one's hand clamped over his mouth. He seemed to be turning blue, but the other two either didn't notice or didn't care.

Within a couple seconds, a distant rumbling of footsteps could be heard. It grew louder at an alarming rate, and the impacts suddenly screeched to a stop in front of the stall in which the three were hiding. The three could soon hear a pair of… _enthusiastic_ voices.

"GAI-SENSEI! I WISH TO ASK WHY WE SUDDENLY FLED THE TRAINING GROUNDS TO ARRIVE AT THIS YOUTHFUL SHOOTING RANGE!"

"PERMISSION GRANTED LEE! THE REASON WE ARE STANDING IN FRONT OF THIS YOUTHFUL STALL IS BECAUSE I FELT A SUDDEN BURST OF _YOUTHFULNESS_!"

"OOOOOH! GAI-SENSEI CAN EVEN SENSE THE YOUTHFULNESS OF OTHERS! YOSH! I WILL DO MY BEST TO TRAIN MYSELF TO ALSO SENSE THE YOUTHFULNESS OF THE WORLD!"

"YOU CAN DO IT LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

Even the stall owner stopped struggling to listen to the bizarre conversation taking place only a few feet away from them. For some reason he could hear the ocean…? Curiosity getting the better of him, he decided to peek over the counter to see just what the source of the odd noises was…

"Wait! No, don't—!" Tenten hissed out a warning, but it was too late. The man would never quite understand what exactly happened, but when asked, he would vaguely recall a sunset, a pair of oddly green and black colored mushrooms, a bright flash of light, and no memory of the following three days. Although he would end up visiting his doctor afterwards because his muscles were so inexplicably cramped ("What the hell did you do? Run a thousand laps around Konoha?").

Tenten sighed in relief, "Safe…"

"Er… technically they managed to get one of us…" Shikamaru mumbled.

The female academy student waved it off carelessly, "Eh, sacrifices must be made for the greater good. Plus, it's his fault for saying **the word**… and Shikamaru's a thousand times more important than a random old man on the street!"

"…I'll take that as a compliment…?"

The two crawled out from under the counter, eliciting a few stares from the surrounding festival-goers. "Ah~ now we have to go find another shooting range…" Tenten pouted. "Oh! I think there's another one over there!"

Tenten once again dragged the young Nara by the hand, making her way to the second stall of the day. This one seemed to be surrounded by people wearing chunin flak jackets and various ninja-wear.

"Woaaah~! It's a_ ninja_ stall!" The future weapons mistress went starry eyed and made her way towards it with renewed vigor, unaware of the fact that her already loosening buns ended up completely unraveling in the process. Her fiancé noticed but deemed her too focused on her destination to care.

"Sweet! I got 4 out of 5 targets! Beat that!" A group of rowdy genin were crowded around the stall. Tenten squeezed herself and the reluctant Nara through the group to approach the person manning the stall.

"Ano, shinobi-san, how much for one round?" The difference in respect from one stall owner to the next was blatant. The jonin behind the counter looked at her with a bored expression on his face, cigarette bobbing up and down lazily in his mouth.

"Aah… 1000 yen for jonin, 500 for chunin, and 200 for genin." He drawled.

The academy student blinked owlishly, "Er… how about for none of the above?"

One of the genin next to her snorted, "This is a stall for _ninjas_. Civilians should just be quiet and watch."

"I'm not a civilian!" The female academy student replied hotly.

"Well, are you a ninja?" The genin retorted.

"No, but I'll be one in a couple years!"

"Hmph! So you're just an academy student, same thing."

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

The argument went on, and the rest of the ninjas in the area watched with curiosity. The young shadow user just sighed and climbed onto one of the surrounding stools, resting his elbow on the counter top and propping his head up. Maybe he could catch a quick nap…

"Oi, aren't you going to go defend your little girlfriend?" The ninja manning the stall interrupted the boy's nap-planning.

He regarded the older man irritably, "She can take care of herself."

The jonin raised an eyebrow, "… hold on, aren't you going to vehemently deny she's your girlfriend with a red face like all other youngsters do these days?"

Shikamaru just stared at the other male, "…why would I? It's sorta true anyway…"

The jonin let out a chuckle, "Interesting… hey, I'm Sarutobi Asuma. What's your name?"

"My mother told me I shouldn't talk to strangers," the academy student replied flatly and pointedly looked in the other direction. Well, his mother never actually said that (she figured her son would deem it too troublesome to follow a stranger home in the first place), but it was a good enough excuse.

Asuma gazed at the antisocial brat in front of him amusedly, deliberately blowing out a bit of smoke in his direction and causing the boy to start coughing.

"Oi! Quit it! Not all of us want to die of lung cancer!" Shikamaru tried to fan away the smoke that seemed set on clogging his airways.

"Hmm… is that any way to talk to the son of the Hokage?" The jonin teased, "I might go ask him to punish an annoying little academy student for speaking out of line…"

Shikamaru gave him a half-hearted glare, "If the Hokage was that shallow, Konoha would've gone to the dogs years ago."

Asuma blinked in surprise. A brat who understood politics? The next generation would definitely be interesting…

"Jonin-san! One set each!" Two voices interrupted their conversation. It seemed the previously bickering pair had decided to settle their differences with an accuracy competition. They had attracted quite a crowd in the process too… oh well, more money for the stall.

"M'kay, 200 yen for the genin and… well, the cute little miss can have a free round," Asuma grinned. He glanced over to see if the little boyfriend was jealous… and saw that he was completely ignoring what was going on in favor of looking up at the sky. Asuma turned back to the female challenger to see that she had barely noticed him (what happened to his manly charm…?). Asuma sighed and decided to get started with explaining the rules, "Okay, so we have five stationary targets and the goal is to throw these kunai and hit the—"

"Oi, oi! That's _way_ too easy. Let's do the chunin level accuracy test! After all, miss _civilian_ boasts one hundred percent accuracy!" The genin demanded haughtily. Murmurs broke out in the crowd behind them.

Asuma raised an eyebrow, "…okay, if you insist. The chunin level has ten moving targets and you have to use shuriken to hit them all simulta—"

"No, give us the jonin level one! I'll show you that I can beat this pathetic excuse of a genin on any level!" Tenten shot the boy next to her a fierce glare, taunting him, "Or is the almighty _genin_ too afraid to take on a _jonin_ level accuracy test?"

The genin started to look a bit nervous, but steeled his expression and accepted the challenge. Even if it was a jonin level course, there was no way an academy student could score better than him, right?

Meanwhile, bets were being made amongst the crowd. It ended up becoming more widespread, and people were soon placing money on the counter

"I got my money on the genin! There's no way a civilian born academy student could win!"

"Yeah, definitely, she probably just bluffi—"

"20000 yen that the girl will hit all of the targets."

_That_ statement definitely caught their attention. The surrounding people looked around, trying to see who was bold enough to bet on the underdog (at least who they thought was the underdog), only to look down and see the boy who came with the girl holding out 20000 yen.

Asuma leaned back towards the betting station, "Oi, gaki, you sure you want to bet that much? That's probably your entire piggy bank right there."

Shikamaru shrugged, "It's not like there's any chance I'm gonna lose it anyway."

Tenten looked over at the commotion and grinned wolfishly when she saw the huge pile of money, "Hey, Shika! After this, you're gonna buy me something _reeeeaaally _expensive, kay?"

"Hai, hai," The young shadow user's expression softened as he watched his fiancée prepare herself for the upcoming competition. The spectators were bemused by the boy's confidence, but continued to brush it off as a bluff.

Asuma sighed, handing out a set of weapons to each brat, "Okay, whatever you say… So the _jonin_ course is a bit different." The shinobi dragged out a crate, "Each of you get ten summon animals (reluctantly donated by several shinobi) who agreed to dispel once you hit three 'vital points'. There are blue, red, and green vital points, which correspond to kunai, shuriken, and senbon respectively. If you hit the correct color with the correct weapon, the summon will dispel and you get one point. Ready?"

The genin started to sweat nervously, "Um… isn't that a bit extreme?"

The older shinobi shrugged in response, "This is a piece of cake for any jonin, and you agreed to it anyway. You going to go back on your word?"

"No!" The genin said a bit too quickly, cheeks flushing red, "Just start the stupid round!"

Asuma rolled his eyes. That ego was going to get the boy killed in the field… however, the academy student didn't seemed ruffled in the least… "Okay then, go!"

He opened the crate and animals of all sorts started rushing out. There were toads, dogs, snakes, cats, giraffes, okapis, a giant clam that was much too agile for its kind…

The male genin shrieked in surprise when a toad landed on his head, clamping onto his skull and covering his eyes ("Where's the candy? There isn't any candy! Jiraiya you liar!"). The boy struggled pointlessly, crashing into others and knocking over stools and boxes of goods.

"Oh… I forgot to mention that you have to get all of them before they run away and wreak havoc throughout the festival," Asuma grinned impishly, "Have fun!"

Suddenly, there was a sharp whistling noise of weapons cutting through the air, multiple pops releasing smoke simultaneously. The rest of the festival-goers looked around confusedly, trying to fan away the sudden haze. Once their visibility returned, all the summon animals were gone, and the female academy student was jollily shoving all the money piled on the counter into a potato sack.

"C'mon Shikamaru! I'm _so_ gonna get that new katana I saw yesterday!"

000

A/N: Because Tenten needs some totally kickass pwnage moments too! By the way, 'ojii-san' means old man while 'oji-san' means uncle.


	4. Fluke

Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

000

**11&12**

"Okay, line up! We're going to do some accuracy drills with moving targets today since all of you have most likely gotten the hang of…"

Shikamaru automatically tuned out the academy sensei's rambling. This was an almost daily occurrence for the lazy academy student, and he was well-versed in the ways of blocking out the voices of troublesome teachers at this point. He would've already been fast asleep by now, but oddly enough, there was something bothering the Nara enough to keep him awake through a typical day at the academy.

There was something wrong with Tenten.

Well, _wrong_ would be a bit strong of a word, but the lazy academy student couldn't be bothered to come up with a more appropriate adjective. It just meant that things were generally _not good_. Surprisingly enough, this had nothing to do with their relationship. If he told someone he thought something was wrong with his fiancée, the person would automatically think there was some sort of scandalous affair involved (after openly gaping at the fact that he _had_ a fiancée at the age of eleven). But this was not the case. Rather, it barely had anything to do with Shikamaru at all if the problem was viewed objectively. But the young Nara couldn't help but worry anyway.

To put it bluntly, Tenten was going to get herself killed.

Not deliberately of course, but killed nonetheless. Not necessarily immediately, but most likely after she became a kunoichi. It wasn't like she didn't have enough skills to be a top class ninja, but her fighting style just didn't allow her to reach her full potential. In the world of shinobi, nothing could be more fatal that specializing in only one field. It made a ninja predictable and easy to kill, which is why many clans with special techniques or bloodlines had enough sense to make sure they didn't rely too much on one trademark jutsu (*cough*excluding a certain bunch of pompous white eyed jerks with superiority complexes*cough*).

Shikamaru just didn't know how to break it to her.

Even though hanging around Tenten settled most of his fears regarding the opposite gender, he still couldn't stop seeing her as a _girl_. And if there was one thing females detested, it was criticism. One little comment about Ino's hair and you could expect a reaction akin to a nuclear explosion. But Tenten would never act that way if her hair was remarked upon, mostly because she didn't really care for it all that much. But if there were two things she cared for the most they would be, one: Shikamaru (he wasn't being arrogant; this was all based off logical observations. How else could you explain why she willingly shields him from the clutches of YOUTH... yes, that had to be capitalized.), and two: pointy objects. As to which was of greater importance has yet to be determined.

She loved weapons in particular, but the female academy student just seemed to have some sort of inexplicable affinity towards anything with a sharp edge. And if anyone were to insinuate the removal of her precious knives and needles, one would find oneself more comparable to a bloody, metallic porcupine than a human being.

Shikamaru continued to sigh as the line for the accuracy test moved along. He was barely aware of his surroundings and didn't even notice when he reached the front of the line. He was still lost in his thoughts, so his body moved on autopilot. He flicked open his kunai pouch and grabbed some throwing knives, five in each hand. He tossed them almost lazily towards the moving targets (which he subconsciously noted weren't really moving all that fast), the weapons emitting dull thunks as they hit wood. Then he proceeded to trudge back to his seat, vaguely noting that all the chatter in the classroom had suddenly gone quiet.

"Oi… Shikamaru…"

Shikamaru glanced at his friend Chouji from his slouched position in the chair next to him. The young Akimichi had a bewildered expression on his face, a half eaten potato chip dangling from his fingers. The young shadow user quirked an eyebrow in response.

"Er…" Chouji gestured vaguely towards the rest of the class, most of them still gathered around the targets. They were eerily quiet, which didn't bode well for lazy academy student. Unnatural silences were usually omens of troublesome events.

"Nara Shikamaru, please return to the front of the class." Even Iruka-sensei's voice had a sort of quizzical tone to it. Shikamaru still had no idea as to what was going on, so all he could do was follow the academy sensei's order.

"Hai, sensei? Did I do something wrong?" Shikamaru made sure to modulate the drawl in his voice to convey complete and utter normality. Depending on what he was called for, he may need to alter it.

The rest of the class continued to stare at him as if he'd grown a second head (Sasuke of all people was sending him a hungry look that was sending chills down the Nara's spine), and Iruka just scratched the scar on his nose contemplatively as if he wasn't sure how he should deal with the young shadow user.

"Well… you didn't do anything wrong, really. Actually, you did something quite impressive— but… well… the instructions were to hit the targets one at a time. Although I am curious as to how you were able to hit all of them on the bull's eye simultaneously. On your first try." The academy sensei gave the young Nara a pointed look.

For a moment, Shikamaru was going to ask the chunin what the hell he was talking about until he noticed that, indeed, his kunai were embedded quite deeply into the centers of the various targets. The young academy student groaned. This was going to take a hell of a lot of explaining.

000

Tenten hummed some unidentifiable tune as she made her way to the class one year below her. She was in a particularly good mood at the moment (She would have to say she'd outdone herself with the dye job on Neji's hair. Pink was definitely his color.), and she was going to meet up with Shikamaru in a few moments, which was like… like getting an extra scoop of ice cream! Or a gargantuan bar of chocolate! Or a cat! A really, really lazy cat with an IQ over 200!

Tenten's train of thought was starting to make its way towards the more loony— er— imaginative side of her mind, and by the time she'd arrived at her fiancé's classroom, she was euphoric enough to stab someone in the face.

…Okay, that didn't really come out right, but let's just say that she was in a good mood and leave it at that.

She scanned the room for the telltale pineapple head snoozing at one of the desks, but to her mystification, she couldn't find one.

"Oi! Has anyone seen Shikamaru?" She called out, not really expecting any sort of reply. Oddly enough, the moment the lazy Nara's name left her lips, everyone went silent, turned their heads, and stared at her with an uncanny amount of synchronicity. She stood there awkwardly, not knowing what exactly she should do in this sort of situation. She was saved from her plight when a nearby blonde grabbed her arm and integrated her into whatever clique said blonde was part of. She was about to thank her when she was suddenly subjected to an impromptu interrogation.

"What do you want with Shikamaru?" The younger academy student asked Tenten with a clipped, no nonsense sort of tone. The rest of the clique tried to stare her down for added effect (and unless Neji was coming back to haunt her, she _swore_ she spotted a girl with pink hair), although Tenten just thought they resembled a school of dead fish with their artificially inflated lips and inability to blink.

The future kunoichi just stared back with a deadpan expression (she picked it up from a certain lazy boyfriend), "And since when do I have to explain myself to some random underclassman? You'd think I was a stalker from your reactions."

The blonde seemed to relax a bit at her response, although the future weapons mistress had no idea why she was being treated so harshly in the first place. "Sorry, sorry… it's just that ever since… well… _that_ incident, lots of girls have been— well, _you know_…"

The bun haired girl gave her a flat stare, "No. I don't know. Care to enlighten me?"

The blonde's eyes (along with all the other girls' in the surrounding area) widened in surprise, "You seriously don't know? But _everybody_ knows! How can you not _know_?"

Tenten felt her fingers twitch towards her weapons pouch, "Well, I _don't know_ how I can possibly _not know_ something that everyone _already knows_, which is why someone like you who actually _does know_ should hurry up and tell me what I _should know_—"—before I shove a kunai up your ass! But Tenten refrained from mentioning that last bit in favor of glaring irritably at the blonde bimbo in front of her.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you!" The blonde tried to placate the irate upperclassman. She flipped her ponytail in an ostentatious manner and began: "Well, it all started in the middle of accuracy training…"

The younger of the two recalled the entire incident, adding her own input here and there. Tenten felt no small amount of pride that (her) Shikamaru managed to automatically hit all the targets without even trying. Soon he will be just as obsessed as she is with all that is sharp and pointy…

"…and I have no idea _why_, but everyone thinks he's some sort of dark-knight-genius hiding his skills and now he's even got _fangirls_…"

The weapons mistress immediately snapped out of her scheming thoughts, "_WHAT?_"

Now, Tenten's exclamation of "what" was not a "what" of surprise. She very well knew just how much of a genius Shikamaru was (accentuated by how he constantly beats her in shogi) and she honestly believed any girl who didn't realize this was as blind as a bat with a an astigmatism. _Fangirls_ on the other hand… well, let's just say that the bun-haired girl was more concerned with whether or not she had enough room in her closet to hide the bodies…

However, the blonde academy student took her exclamation as an expression of incredulity, "_I know_ right? I mean, how could such a lazy-ass be a genius? Those girls are just— ugh! They must be delusional or something… now _Sasuke_ on the other hand…"

The pony-tailed blonde adopted a dreamy expression, while Tenten looked at her mutinously, "And just who are you to judge whether Shikamaru's a genius or not?"

The blonde scoffed, "Cause I, Yamanaka Ino, was forced to _grow up _with him! And believe me, after being stuck around him for so long, I would notice if he was a genius or not! He's nothing but a lazy slacker who can only repeat the word troublesome like a broken record."

Tenten's eyes widened with surprise. So _this _was the Yamanaka Ino she so often heard Shikamaru complaining about… She never really got the chance to meet her. And honestly, now that she has, she kind of wished she hadn't.

Tenten merely sighed, "Okay, so where's Shikamaru?"

Apparently, this was the wrong thing to ask.

"Don't tell me _you're_ one of his fangirls too!" Ino pointed a finger at her accusingly.

Tenten wanted to remark upon how hypocritical that statement was but sighed once more and decided to ignore her instead. The upperclassman stood up and promptly walked out the door in an apathetic fashion that would've made Shikamaru proud. She could hear the the group of anti-Shikamaru-ists continuing to squawk indignantly as she made her way down the corridors.

Once she was in the middle of a pretty much abandoned hallway, she closed her eyes and spread out her senses. She drew in her own chakra and tried to locate the signature of the lazy Nara who managed to garner the entire school's attention. She really wasn't all that great with sensing chakra, but she'd been around Shikamaru for so long that she knew his signature like that back of her hand by now.

She felt a spark and she grinned triumphantly. The girl quickly opened her eyes and trotted off towards the location where she sensed the young shadow user. She was eventually led to the door of an academy sensei's office. She put her ear against the wood of the door, trying to hear the conversation on the other side.

"Like I said, it was just a fluke," she immediately recognized the voice of the boy she was looking for.

"Really. Hitting all ten on your first try was a fluke." The next voice was skeptical.

"What can I say? Fate must be smiling down upon me today." Tenten could literally hear the shrug that accompanied the lazy Nara's reply.

She heard an audible sigh afterwards, "Shikamaru, I don't understand why you are so set on hiding your abilities—"

There was a sudden noise of glass shattering, "—what th— _Sasuke_? What are you doing? You should still be in class—"

"Fight me."

A groan. "For the hundredth time, it was a _fluke_. Now _please_ stop staring at me like I'm a piece of meat."

"—did you break in through the _window_? Why can't you just use the door? Do you know just how much it costs to replace the glass—?"

"Fight me."

"No. And you sound like a parrot. I'm leaving before Iruka-sensei has an aneurysm."

The door opened to reveal the irritated face of Nara Shikamaru. The irritation was quickly replaced with surprise upon seeing the female on the other side of the door.

Tenten's face lit up, "Shikamaru! Your alive! And you even managed to get an Uchiha fanboy!"

She heard Sasuke make a strangled noise from inside the office room, along with her fiancé's sensei yelling for the Nara to come back, but Tenten just grabbed the other academy student's wrist and dragged him off in some random direction.

"Hold on tight, Shika!"

The young Nara wasn't given the chance to protest before Tenten catapulted them out an open window. A fifth story window. Suffice to say, Shikamaru was starting to regret ignoring that one lecture on wall walking…

Fortunately, they landed in a tree that was sturdy enough to support the weight of two preteens, and when Shikamaru finally gathered the courage to open his eyes, he was graced with the sight of his fiancée giggling madly.

"_Shikamaru_ has a fanboy…Shikamaru _has_ a fanboy… Shikamaru has _a fanboy_…" Tenten was trying to cover her mouth with a hand to prevent her from downright howling with laughter.

Shikamaru sent her a sour look, "Shut up. I blame your regretfully competent teaching skills for this mess."

Tenten grinned, "I'll take that as a compliment." Then her expression turned contemplative, "But even if I'm a fabulous teacher, I can't make Shikamaru accidentally show how awesome he actually is in class." She leveled a surprisingly deep stare at him, "What's been bothering you today?"

Shikamaru stared back for a moment and sighed, scratching the back of his neck and muttering a soft "troublesome" as the two academy students squatted on a tree branch like a pair of quails. "I… think it'd be better if you learned other techniques besides weaponry."

The young Nara stared at his female counterpart cautiously, ready to flee at any sign of danger. Tenten merely blinked confusedly.

"…okay then. But you still haven't answered my question."

This time Shikamaru was the one who blinked confusedly, "Wait, you're okay with my suggestion?"

"… why wouldn't I be? And you still haven't answered my que—"

Shikamaru interrupted her, "Woah, woah, wait a second. The last time a guy tried to take away your weapons you practically _murdered_ him for spouting such blasphemous—"

Now it was Tenten's turn to interrupt, "I know, but that guy wasn't a freaking genius with an IQ over 200. And it's not like you're _taking away_ my weapons— plus, I prefer living boyfriends." She raised an eyebrow, "Is that all that was bothering you?"

Shikamaru merely stared at her. And then he broke out laughing. Tenten's face gained a confused expression, "What?"

Shikamaru gave her one of his languid smirks, "It seems I'm the one who made this more troublesome than it had to be." He leaned forward and Tenten's eyes widened when she felt his lips brush hers.

It was a brief moment of contact, and Tenten continued to stare at the boy (who was wearing an "I-do-not-regret-what-I-did-but-I'd-appreciate-it-if-you-decide-to-not-punch-me-in-the-face-like-all-the-other-females-in-canon" expression), her eyes resembling saucers.

"Y-you just…" Shikamaru wasn't sure what to make of her reaction when her eyes suddenly turned sparkly. "You kissed me!"

Shikamaru was starting feel a bit wary, "…yes. I did." Please don't hurt me.

That last bit wasn't voiced aloud, but the young Nara was praying to every god he knew that his fiancée wasn't actually a tsundere in disguise.

Tenten's face suddenly split into a ten thousand watt grin, "This is the first time you initiated it!"

Shikamaru blinked, taken aback by the sudden radiance of her smile, "I-I suppose—"

"Oh my god we need to celebrate!" Tenten was dragging Shikamaru by the hand once more, hopping from tree branch to tree branch at a dangerous pace, "Did I mention that I dyed Neji's hair pink? Well this feels a _billion_ times better! I really wanna stab something right now! Oh, by the way, what's your idea for the new techniques we're gonna try?"

For once, Shikamaru didn't really mind being dragged by the hand as they made their way towards the training grounds. His dark eyes glinted in the sunlight, "Well, there's this thing called elemental manipulation…"

000

A/N: Hope you enjoyed it! Not much to say this time around… although I would like to see a picture of Neji with pink hair…

EDIT: Typo fixed— thanks, Afriel! :D


	5. Team

Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto

000

**12&13**

"What do you do when a woman cries?"

Oddly enough, this was the first complete sentence that ever left Shikamaru's mouth (at the late age of three when he realized that he could no longer avoid Ino by pretending to be slow), delivered to his father with an indifferent, yet somehow still slightly inquisitive, expression. He didn't really know where the question itself came from, but his three year old mind figured he should get some advice just in case he ever had to deal with such a disagreeable situation. His father had turned to him with a mien much too unenthusiastic for a parent hearing his child's first full sentence, replying that it depended on whether or not you were the one who made her cry. Which was a frustratingly vague answer, and as Shikamaru didn't have the motivation to dig deeper and Shikaku didn't have the motivation to elaborate, the conversation died an anticlimactic death.

The present Shikamaru was starting to regret killing off that discussion prematurely as he awkwardly comforted the female sobbing into his shirt.

The day had started out normally enough: wake up, avoid his mother, meet up with Tenten, sleep through the first couple hours of school… until the monotony of his daily life was rudely interrupted when his fiancée stormed into his classroom during lunch break with a frightening expression on her face and unceremoniously dragged him out the door (he was really starting to regret introducing her to elemental manipulation because he could literally feel the static electricity coming off of her), leaving the rest of the students staring after them. He was deposited on the academy roof shortly afterwards, and she furiously paced back and forth while Shikamaru frantically tried to deduce what he could have possibly done in the past few hours to make her face turn such an apoplectic shade of red.

So when she caught his waist in a vice like grip and started bawling into the front of his shirt, all he could really do for half a minute was sit there blankly before ineptly going about the business of comforting a crying female.

He soon discovered that he wasn't the one she was mad at (he absently realized that if he really had done something she would've impaled him on a stick instead of _cry_ of all things), which left the even more troublesome business of figuring out what was bothering her. Conveniently enough, Tenten was rambling quite a bit in between sobs, which gave the Nara enough info to at least know the basics of what happened.

Apparently, today was the day Tenten got assigned to her genin team.

And if her dark mutterings of burning all the spandex in fire country and creating the first epicene Hyuuga were anything to go by, Tenten had most likely gotten stuck with the three most undesirable teammates imaginable.

Shikamaru inwardly groaned. This was going to take an immense amount of cajolery on his part to coax Tenten out of her slump, and in her current mood, one wrong word most likely assured a bloody acquaintance between a kunai and his face. Although, excluding spars, she'd never directed her weapons deliberately towards him, after witnessing her wrath incurred upon other unfortunate souls (who were stupid enough to insult him/her/any combination thereof), he didn't care to take any chances.

But even for Tenten, this reaction was a bit extreme… the Tenten Shikamaru knew would go off and neuter the Sandaime for even considering putting her on a team with the unholy trio, and yet here she was _sobbing_ as if she'd contracted some unknown disease that involves slowly dying from internal bleeding—

"—and I even contracted some unknown disease that involves slowly dying from internal bleeding—"

…wait, what?

Shikamaru's train of thought screeched to a halt as he stared uncomprehendingly at his teary companion, "…can you repeat that?"

The distressed weapons mistress sniffled miserably, "I said that I even contracted some unknown disease that involves slowly dying from internal bleeding—" another sniffle, "—waking up one morning and finding your pajamas soaked in blood and no matter what you do it _just__won__'__t__stop_— I swear my academy sensei poisoned me because when I told him about it he just _laughed_— and to top it all off I'm going to spend my final moments forming YOUTHFUL BONDS with an androgynous asshole and a mutant froglet, and goddammit Shikamaru, dying at the age of thirteen is just fucking pathetic…"

Now she was cursing up a storm and insulting a number of higher beings, which was rather odd because she wasn't really the type to swear excessively. Shikamaru noted how she suddenly stopped crying in favor of displaying her colorful arsenal of vocabulary…

Shikamaru's brain puttered to a halt.

Mood swings? Check.

Inexplicable bleeding? Check.

Preteen female? Check.

…Shikamaru could feel the grandmother of all headaches forming in his skull, and please, _please_ let him not have to be the one to explain to his girlfriend what a _period_ was—

"—Shikamaru you have to _help_ me!" Tenten wailed, back to sobbing into his shirt. The young Nara winced and felt a tiny smidgen of guilt proliferating at the bottom of his stomach because, through some demented deductive reasoning, Tenten honest to god believed that she contracted a twisted cross between a disease and food poisoning while he was only prolonging her distress because he was reluctant to have to explain The-Thing-That-Must-Be-Explained.

The female academy student leveled him a pair of watery eyes, red and puffy from overuse (and jesus christ she was using The Pout, now that was just _unfair_…), and Shikamaru forced down his natural instinct to run far, far away from the situation that was becoming troublesome incarnate.

He mentally steeled himself and decided he might as well make this as quick and painless as possible as there was no use delaying the inevitable. He grabbed the blubbering girl's hand, "C'mon, we're ditching school."

Tenten blinked, "Eh? Why?"

Shikamaru's mouth set into a grim line, wearing the expression of a shinobi about to accept a suicide mission.

"I'm taking you to meet my mother."

000

Two interrogations, one reprimand, and a very long explanation later, Nara Yoshino had taken the "poor, unfortunate girl who fell victim to her promiscuous son's treacherous Nara charm" upstairs for some girl talk. Sensing that the worst of the danger has past, Shikamaru visibly relaxed and sank into the living room couch, massaging his temples in a futile attempt to soothe his growing headache.

He looked up to see his father staring at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Shikaku merely sighed, mumbling something about how history tends to repeat itself in freakish ways.

000

"Wait… so you're saying… this is _normal_?"

The Nara matriarch nodded.

"And it's gonna happen again next month?"

Another nod.

"And it's gonna _continue_ happening until I'm a _fucking __60 __year __old_?"

"Language."

"Yes ma'am."

Tenten trudged down the staircase with a storm cloud hovering above her head. Of course, it was nice to know that she wasn't going to die before she even hit twenty, but it _wasn't_ exactly nice to realize that she was going to have deal with this again and again and _again_. And she was still on a genin team with The Three Unmentionables, so today was still utterly crap-tastic. She vaguely noted that she was cursing an awful lot today, but she couldn't really bring herself to care.

She reached the bottom of the staircase to meet Shikamaru, and she couldn't help but let out a small grin at his "I'm-trying-to-look-indifferent-but-I'm-actually-really-worried-about-you" expression.

The Nara shifted uncomfortably, "Um, are you… uh… okay now?"

Tenten couldn't help it; it was just too good an opportunity to mess with him to pass up, "You bet! It was _enlightening_! Ne, Shikamaru, did you know that babies actually came from a woman's—"

Shikamaru hastily slapped a hand over her mouth, sputtering for a response as his face turned a particularly bright shade of red, "Wait— you shouldn't—!"

Tenten broke into peals of laughter, and upon realizing that he'd been duped, Shikamaru merely sighed exasperatedly, though thankful that she was back in high spirits. The tension in his shoulders relaxed, but instantly returned when his mother arrived at the bottom of the stairway.

Yoshino folded her arms, "Well Shikamaru? Care to explain why it took you _five __years_ to inform us you had a fiancée?"

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

000

It turned out that having a secret fiancée and being the heir to a clan at the same time was a very, very troublesome mix. Papers were signed and some sort of contract was formed, so now they'd officially started "courting". Shikamaru was shocked that his parents accepted the whole affair so easily, but his mother merely said that the fact that there was anyone out there willing to put up with him, let alone get _engaged_ with him, was a miracle in itself, and his father just agreed with whatever his mother said, so the papers were drafted and voila, instant engagement.

"You know what we need?" Tenten interrupted his thoughts, dangling her feet over the edge of the roof of his house.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"Stress relief," the weapons mistress stated bluntly, "You need to forget about your mom and I need to forget about—" a shudder "—my new… _team_."

Shikamaru sat up from his reclined position, "What did you have in mind?"

A downright devilish grin formed on her face, "Well, I figured that if _I_ have to deal with them, everyone else might as well have to deal with them too…"

000

The Sandaime sipped at his tea contentedly. This year's team assignments had worked out perfectly, _and_ he'd finished his paperwork early today. Maybe he'd go home early, do some light reading…

He absently recalled one team that was a bit iffy, but he was able to get Gai off his hands and two of the oddballs of the class into one team, so he supposed it worked out well enough. The third Hokage felt a bit sorry for whoever the fourth person on the team was, but he couldn't bring himself to care all that much. He couldn't even remember the name of the person who was assigned, so there was no point worrying about it.

He gazed out the window of his office, the sunset painting brilliant streaks of red and orange across the sky. Now _this_ was what he became Hokage to protect, the children playing in the streets, the villagers contentedly going about their daily lives, the conspicuous giant fuzzy eyebrows on the Hokage monument—

Sarutobi Hiruzen spit out his tea. The honorable faces of the first, second, and fourth Hokages were nowhere to be seen, replaced by the face of a Hyuuga and two horrifyingly familiar pairs of bowl cuts and giant fuzzy eyebrows.

He screamed.

000

A/N: Hmm... I'm not sure if epicene is the correct adjective for someone who's neither male nor female, but I suppose it works well enough o.o


	6. Paranoia

Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

000

**13&14**

Ino stormily gnawed the calloused skin on the tip of her thumb as she unwillingly followed her two new, as of today, genin teammates. She'd gotten the lazy ass and the fatty— _the __lazy __ass __and __the __fatty_! While the pink-haired _banshee_ managed to get Sasuke-kun on her team! The Yamanaka was a veritable geyser of feminine fury, although some part of her had already known she would end up with these two (their parents had been on a team together and they'd known each other since they were in diapers, so there was really no chance they _wouldn__'__t_ be placed on the same team), she had still hoped that maybe, possibly, _hopefully_ she could be placed on the same team as Sasuke (because she was such a good little girl and deserved it much, much more than the pink, mutant bookworm, right?). Sasuke's team probably got a super cool sensei too (because Sasuke-kun can't be taught by _anybody_ but the best!), which only further soured the Yamanaka's mood as she gazed at the chain-smoking, average Joe shinobi beside her.

"Well, let's do some introductions, shall we? Try to get to know each other and stuff," The bearded jonin sat down on the bench in front of them. They had stopped at a secluded area right at the edge of the cliff face at the top of the Hokage monument. The rest of the newly made genins followed suit, plopping themselves down on the surrounding tree stumps.

Their team leader scratched his beard absently, "I guess I'll start it off. I'm Sarutobi Asuma—" related to the Sandaime? Maybe he wasn't as average as she'd initially thought, "—I like smoking, Konoha, and Kure— er, genjutsu users—" was that a _blush_? "—my dislikes… well… authority figures? Bossy people in general, I guess. My dream is to serve Konoha to the best of my ability." The cigarette in his mouth bobbed up and down as he talked, and when he finished it swiveled to the side and pointed at the only female present with unnerving accuracy, "Okay, you next."

Ino huffed, puffing up in a way not dissimilar to a rooster sticking up its tail feathers, and gave her introduction. She decided to make it short since the other two here already knew her, there was no point in giving her life story (although she still somehow managed to mention "Sasuke-kun" seven times). She crossed her arms when she finished and Chouji was next, the chubby boy giving facts about himself she'd already known at the age of five. The blonde gave a small sigh; she didn't even have the pleasure of meeting new people after graduation. When the Akimichi finished, she already knew what to expect from Shikamaru. He'd probably say something about troublesome women, clouds, shogi, and his pathetically low expectations for his future career, wife, children, and life in general.

Oddly enough, the Nara completely ignored their future jonin instructor when he was addressed. Or more accurately, Shikamaru seemed to merely not notice any of them at all.

"Um… boy? Did you hear me?" Asuma waved a hand in front of the catatonic Nara, only for the academy graduate to jolt violently and throw a handful of shuriken at the older male in a movement far too fast for either of his year mates to follow. Asuma jerked backwards in surprise, one hand snatching the projectiles out of the air and the other firmly grasping the genin's arm to prevent him from launching another volley. The young Nara had an almost hysteric look in his eyes, twitching as if he wasn't comfortable sitting in place. Once the boy realized what had happened, he settled down and schooled his features.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked in his typical drawl. The sole female of the future Ino-Shika-Chou trio was gobsmacked.

Ino squawked indignantly, "What does he think he's doing? _What __does __he __think __he__'__s __doing?_ What do you think _you__'__re_ doing attacking our jonin instructor?" Her blonde hair was fraying at the edges, "What if you'd killed him? What if we couldn't become genin because you _murdered_ our first instructor in a fit of demented—!"

"I assure you that a mere academy graduate wouldn't be able kill me so easily," Asuma said with a hint of amusement, although he was a bit disturbed by the fact that said academy graduate was able to catch him off guard. He hadn't sensed any sort of killing intent from the boy until a bunch of shuriken were sailing towards his face. He turned back to the young shadow user, "I was just trying to get your attention. We're doing introductions right now."

Shikamaru blinked and looked around at his surroundings as if he'd only just realized where he was. Which wouldn't make sense since they'd been sitting here for over ten minutes.

"…oh." He stated. Ino was ready to tear out her hair. He reacts more like a paranoid survivor of the Third Shinobi War than the lazy Nara he is and all he has to say about it is _"oh"_?

Asuma raised an eyebrow, wordlessly asking the thirteen year old if he was going to continue. "…right. Uh, my name's Nara Shikamaru and I like… shogi… and clouds…" There were pauses awkwardly dispersed throughout the Nara's introduction, and everyone present could tell that he was preoccupied with something else. His eyes would constantly shift to the surrounding foliage as if he were expecting Orochimaru to pop out of a bush. His fingers would twitch towards his weapons pouch every few seconds and he just _couldn__'__t __seem __to __sit __still_. "I dislike," his brow furrowed considerably when he reached this part, "Boys."

The other three shot the out of character Nara multiple looks of incomprehension, and the focus of the three's attention seemed to be recalling some displeasing memory if the slight frown and blank gaze on his face were anything to go by.

"…_boys_?" Ino stared at him incredulously. If she hadn't been so familiar with the Nara's mannerisms to know that, yes, this was most definitely Shikamaru sitting in front her, she would've been thoroughly convinced that he had been an imposter. And a really bad one at that. "What happened to troublesome _women_?" Not to mention the fact that his supposedly best friend who currently looked like he was about to cry was also a boy.

The Nara shrugged. "Those too I guess. Er… don't worry Chouji, I don't mean you. Or me for that matter. Actually, I probably only mean it for, uh, thirteen to fourteen year old boys who have a doujutsu and/or freakishly advanced taijutsu skills. And if their hair is long. Or if it's a bowl cut. Or a chicken's ass."

At this point, it was obvious that Shikamaru's sudden dislike of boys really only applied to three specific people.

Ino sighed, "Shikamaru, you could've just _said_ that you met three guys you didn't really like instead of—"

"Nara _SHIKA_**maru**."

Ino blinked at the sudden interruption. It was an odd experience, the sound of her teammate's name being mentioned in three distinctly different voices, creating a queer, echoing sort of effect. Asuma and Chouji just gained bemused expressions while Shikamaru looked quite fittingly, given his name, like a deer caught in the headlights. He seemed just about ready to leap into the forest and _away_ from the creepy, disembodied tri-voice that called his name just now, but Asuma made sure to grip the boy's arm to prevent that.

"Oi, what exactly was that?" Asuma inquired.

The Nara was sweating bullets, "Uh, well, it's kind of a long story, and I'd love to tell it to you some other time but I'd _really_ appreciate if you'd just let me go now so I don't have to deal with an infinitely troublesome situa—"

Three boys burst into the clearing at the same time. One with long hair and the blank eyes of a Hyuuga, one with a bowl cut and wearing a horrendous green jumpsuit, and one with—

"—SASUKE-KUN!" Ino squealed at an unimaginably high pitch, causing most of the males in the vicinity to wince, as she glomped her object of affection. She subconsciously deleted Shikamaru's chicken ass comment from her memory as there was no way anything pertaining to Sasuke could be described in such an insulting way. "You came to see me? I _knew_ we belonged together, getting stuck with billboard brow must've been just _horrible_!"

Sasuke briefly gave her a who-the-hell-are-you-and-why-are-you-drooling-all-over-my-arm sort of look before directing his attention back to the reason he came in the first place.

He leveled a glare at the elusive Nara, "Fight me."

Shikamaru groaned, futilely trying to wrench his arm out of his jonin instructor's grip as he made his eyes look at anything but the three boys in front of him.

Neji snorted, "You should know better than to try to hide from a Hyuuga." He turned his head towards his fellow doujutsu user, "And he's fighting me first, Uchiha."

Sasuke gave the long haired male a condescending look, "I suggest you back off _Hyuuga_, or would you rather I beat you up first?"

The white-eyed boy raised an eyebrow, "I'd like to see you try. Let's see if the village's golden boy really does amount to anything other than a wretched brat who only managed to live to today because his brother couldn't bother to kill him."

Sasuke snarled, "I _dare_ you to repeat that. I could wipe the floor with you, and any other pathetic _branch __house_ Hyuuga in this village."

Said branch house Hyuuga's eyes narrowed dangerously, byakugan flaring to life, "I'll show you just what a _branch __house_ Hyuuga can do you ungrateful son of a—"

"IT IS MOST UNYOUTHFUL TO BRING PERSONAL MATTERS INTO IMPERSONAL ARGUMENTS!" Rock Lee declared a tad too boisterously, effectively dousing any sparks of anger and planting seeds of annoyance instead. He enthusiastically turned to the Nara who was hoping that they had forgotten about him at this point, "And if I may, I would like to challenge you to a most youthful battle! Anyone who could capture the attention of my eternal rival must be a most worthy adversary!"

Shikamaru scooted as far back as possible, "Er, no thank you, I assure you I am definitely _not_ a most worthy adversary, and Neji, just because I won _one_ game of shogi against you doesn't make me a decent fighter at all— Sasuke, it's been a _year_ already, just how many times do I have to tell you it was fluke for you to actually believe—"

"OOOIIIII! Sasuke-teme! WHERE ARE YOU? What the hell do you think you're doing, running off in the middle of a team meeting?"

"Sasuke-kun? Sasuke-kun, are you there? Oh, what if he was kidnapped by some missing nin?"

"Maa, maa, I'm sure Sasuke-kun is perfectly fine."

"OOOOOH! MY ETERNAL RIVAL! WHAT A YOUTHFUL COINCIDENCE IT IS TO MEET YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS FOREST! THIS IS A PERFECT OPPURTUNITY TO CHALLENGE YOU TO—"

"—a competition of who can find their students first. Now can we _please_ get on with searching for them?"

"Holy sh— Bowlcut-ojisan, you've got _caterpillars_ growing out of your forehead!"

"MY YOUTHFUL BLOSSOM THAT IS A MOST WONDERFUL IDEA! IF I CANNOT FIND MY YOUTHFUL STUDENTS FIRST, I WILL CLIMB UP THE HOKAGE MONUMENT WITH NOTHING BUT MY WISDOM TEETH!"

"…isn't that physically impossible?"

"NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH THE POWER OF _YOUTH_, CHERRY-PINK BLOSSOM OF MY ETERNAL RIVAL!"

"Kakashi-sensei, I'm catching a disease. I think it's called 'insanity'."

"Maa… just pretend he isn't there and you'll be fine. Think of him as a giant tree frog."

A grand total of five people burst into the already quite crowded clearing, and complete chaos ensued the moment they were visible.

Naruto tackled Sasuke down the moment he caught sight of him and the scuffle that resulted turned into a messy brawl on the ground with the two boys rolling over each other and tossing up giant clouds of dust. Sakura was having a slightly less physical, but no less heated, confrontation with her childhood nemesis but if the scratching and hair pulling were anything to go by, they would probably end up in a similar situation as their male teammates soon enough. Gai had delivered a magnificent punch that sent his beloved student through two trees, a blackberry bush, and a boulder, only to fall into their hug-and-cry-manly-tears-whilst-repeatedly-yelling-each-other's-names routine right afterwards. Kakashi and Asuma were engaged in a casual conversation about how this year's crop of genin was doomed, while Chouji decided sit down next to his best friend and munch on a bag of chips.

Tenten sheepishly approached the emotionally drained Nara (after tying her Hyuuga teammate to a tree so he wouldn't harass her poor fiancé), scratching the back of her head, "Er… sorry I wasn't able to properly restrain them. They kinda just… ran off the moment I wasn't looking."

Shikamaru gave a half hearted grunt and mumbled something along the lines of "it's not your fault" and "I'm going to murder them in their sleep".

Tenten chuckled and sat down on the other side of the Nara, noticing the chubby— er, big boned boy on the other side of him. She waved at him to catch his attention, "Hi! I'm Tenten, the sane one on my team."

Chouji regarded her with a critical eye and nodded. He turned back to his best friend, "Chip?"

000

A/N: Phew. First writer's block for this fic, hope the wait wasn't too agonizing XD. Not much romance this time, but now Shikamaru's got a trio of fanboy-stalkers 8D.


	7. Stare

Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

000

**13&14**

"LISTEN UP YOU GUYS! I'M UZUMAKI NARUTO, FUTURE HOKAGE, AND I'M GONNA KICK ALL OF YOUR ASSES!"

Shikamaru softly groaned; they'd been explicitly advised to _not_ draw attention to themselves and then the blonde wannabe Hokage just had to go and broadcast their presence to a room full bloodthirsty, infinitely more experienced chunin hopefuls. The orange loving idiot may as well just slit all their necks while he's at it. Not that Shikamaru personally had anything against the blonde, he actually felt somewhat grateful towards the Uzumaki. When team 7 came back from a mission in Wave, Naruto had somehow managed to transfer Sasuke's obsessive fixation on Shikamaru to himself, which left the lazy Nara with one less stalker. He could've kissed the blonde idiot in joy (yes, he was _that _relieved) but decided against it since it would've probably been taken the wrong way. And because Tenten would either castrate him or, an even more horrifying possibility, take _pictures_.

The Nara lowered his gaze, trying to make himself scarce. He shoved his left hand in his pocket and nervously fingered the metal band around his ring finger (a nervous habit he'd acquired some point between now and getting engaged). No one here, just your average genin who is in no way associated with the blond megaphone standing a couple feet away…

As the pineapple headed shinobi was trying to meld with the surrounding furniture, he made eye contact with a certain female sitting across the room. A certain bun haired, brown eyed, trying-hard-to-stifle-her-giggles female.

Shikamaru gave his fiancée a sullen look and Tenten's shoulders only shook even harder. Trust his girlfriend to always be there to laugh at his misery. He sighed and turned to Chouji, deciding to ignore her for now (he was _not_ sulking). He started talking casually with his best friend, only half his mind on the conversation. He was really starting to wonder why he'd agreed to taking the chunin exam in the first place. He supposed it was mostly because his mother, Ino, _and_ Tenten had made him sign the form. If it were merely his mom, who just lectured, withheld meals, and mysteriously multiplied the amount of chores he had (it was a freaking _monarchy _in there), and Ino, who just screeched until his ears started ringing (but it was temporary so it was okay), he most likely would've managed to avoid taking the exam.

But there was _Tenten_.

Tenten, the most reasonable female the shadow user ever had the pleasure of meeting; his fiancée, future wife, and one of his closest companions.

And the only woman in Fire Country who could effectively make Shikamaru get off his lazy ass and actually _do _something.

Yes, if there was one reason the notoriously lazy Nara was taking the chunin exam, it was Tenten. Because goddammit, Tenten's arguments were actually _convincing_. No smooth talking, extortion, physical threats, just plain, pie-in-the-face facts that Shikamaru's brain (that was too smart for its own good) couldn't ignore. Curse her for making so much sense…

Ah, looks like some white haired kid with glasses was saying something to the rest of the rookies… oh, now he just got attacked by someone who couldn't seem decide whether to be a mummy or a cyborg for Halloween… glasses kid just threw up for no particular reason…

The examiners appeared in a plume of smoke, no doubt for the dramatic effect (Shikamaru had a theory that after you made jonin, it was physically impossible for you to walk through a door and enter a room the _normal_ way like everyone else). Scar-face was barking out orders, typical alpha male voice, body posture meant to intimidate, at least half the genin in the room were sweating twice as much as they were five seconds ago—

Shikamaru closed his eyes and bit back a sigh, pinching the bridge of the nose. He was over-analyzing the situation again. He trudged towards his assigned seat, determined to think about absolutely nothing for the next hour; he was going to ruin his reputation as a lazy ass at this rate. Unfortunately, Scar-face was using the impossible-to-ignore-big-important-commander voice, so Shikamaru had no choice but to listen (he swore the man's voice was laced with chakra). The shadow user dissected the words, read the nuances in speech, followed the rise and fall in pitch, and after a few seconds of processing, his brain promptly spit out the conclusion that the point of the test was to cheat. Joy.

Why did ninjas have to be so— so _ninja-like_? A man could cough into his fist and suddenly there were a bazillion ways to interpret that one, tiny, seemingly insignificant gesture (He's trying to get someone's attention? He has a cold? A passing toad hermit shoved a talking amphibian down his throat, only for it to ultimately disgorge itself when an irate dango lady elbowed him in the solar plexus for no particular reason, leaving him with a chronic cough that just won't go away since his doctor is actually a reptilian pedophile who hands out candy stuffed with radioactive waste to small children on Halloween?). There was _never_ a straightforward answer to any question; it's always looking _underneath the underneath_, to quote Kakashi-sensei. Except it was more like looking underneath the underneath, inverting it, folding it into a paper crane, tilting it at a 45 degree angle, and _then_ seeing if you could make sense of the senseless senselessness left over.

Sad thing was, Shikamaru actually _could_ make sense of it. Quite easily, too.

The lazy Nara cursed his inner genius for the umpteenth time and returned to the task at hand: getting the answers to the test in the quickest, un-troublesome-est way possible.

As the little genius reclined in his chair, slouching ungracefully (to the annoyance of a few examiners who noticed that their big bad intimidation techniques were being brushed off by a mere genin) and staring at the ceiling, Shikamaru noticed something that definitely wasn't there when he'd first entered the room.

Were those _mirrors_?

The reflective panels angled silently, moving back and forth but making sure to not cast any obvious streaks of light across the walls. One of the mirrors tilted towards the Nara and Shikamaru had to smile fondly at the message scrawled in familiar handwriting:

_You owe me one ;P_

Another mirror faced him shortly, this one reflecting some other examinee's test, complete with answers. Then another faced him, this time reflecting the mirror-master's face in all her glory, winking at him in a none too cheesy way. Shikamaru chuckled softly, meeting they eyes in the mirror and nodding a wordless thank you. She flashed him a brilliant grin ("Brats still have the audacity to flirt when Ibiki's standing practically _ten feet away from them_…" muttered one of the girlfriend-less examiners who deducted a point just out of spite.), and after he'd finished copying down the answers, the ninja wires connected to the mirrors twitched, directing them elsewhere to enlighten the rest of her test taking teammates.

Shikamaru stretched appreciatively, discreetly signaling "no need" to Ino as she prepared to perform her clan technique on him (he could just imagine the shock registered on her face by that fact that he'd bothered to get the answers _by himself_). He plopped his head onto his arms and was asleep in a matter of minutes, completely oblivious to the poisonous looks half the examiners were sending him.

000

"…now you have to make a very important choice, and that is whether you wish to take the question or not…"

Shikamaru felt something hit the back of his head (which he would later find out was a spitball shot by Ino in a desperate attempt to wake him up) and let out an annoyed grunt, muffled by his arms. He got up lethargically, letting out a monster of a yawn and inadvertently interrupting Scar-face's Scary-Speech-Of-Doom-And-Despair. A couple people snickered.

"…it seems some of us are finally back among the living." Scar-face sent Shikamaru his Capillary-Rupturing-Glare-Of-Unspeakable-Horrors.

The Nara had to blink and rub his eyes for a few moments before registering that he was the unlucky genin who had been singled out by the head of T&I. Well. That didn't bode too well for the future.

Deciding that no action would be the best course of action, Shikamaru put on his best neutral expression and steadily matched the interrogator's gaze. Scar-face actually seemed a bit surprised that the thirteen year old wasn't cowering in fear, but it was quickly covered up with an I-Eat-Babies-For-Breakfast-Sneer. The son of Nara Yoshino wasn't deterred though (if he could face his mother, he could face _anything_), so it came down to an impromptu staring contest, neither of them blinking and everyone else in the room sweating bullets from the suspense. You could see the electricity crackling at the approximate midpoint between their gazes.

A minute passed and there was no change in the status quo.

A couple minutes passed and there was still no change in the status quo.

Ten minutes passed and both parties' eyes were really starting to get irritated, and they were kind of hoping that someone would interrupt them or something right now because this was getting really painful—

"Ooh, look! It's Orochimaru in a drag!"

Both of the males who were locked in a staring contest did a double take and turned their heads towards the female voice that had blurted out such a ridiculous statement.

Tenten rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, now everyone was staring at her, "Uh... whoops, it was just a Kusa-nin... sorry about that..."

The genin rolled their eyes while the Kusa-nin who actually _was_ Orochimaru in a drag visibly relaxed (he was going to _murder_ that *$%#ing brat...).

Ibiki coughed into his fist, "As I was saying, you're going to have to choose whether you want to take the tenth question or not because if you answer incorrectly, you are banned from taking the chunin exam ever agai—"

The interrogation specialist was rudely interrupted when Anko crashed through the window, shards of glass flying everywhere.

"Okay brats! I'm gonna be your examiner for the second half of the exam, so meet me at training ground 44 at—"

Ibiki gripped the dango-lady's shoulder, "Oi. I'm not done yet."

Anko's eyes widened, "Seriously? What the hell were you doing, having a staring contest with a random genin?"

Ibiki's lips pinched together and gave his best I-Am-Not-Obliged-To-Answer-That-Question-Frown. Unfortunately, Anko had been working with him for years, so it didn't really work.

She burst out laughing, "Oh this is _rich_, the great Ibiki couldn't even proctor the easiest part of the chunin exam because he was stuck in a _staring contest? _I can imagine the look Hokage-sama is going to give me when I..."

The scantily dressed woman went on making fun of her superior while said superior was sending waves of killing intent towards a pineapple headed genin who was trying very hard to melt into his seat.

Tenten continued to giggle incessantly from across the room.

000

A/N: I really think this is starting to border on crack... either way, first canon event! I didn't want to follow it _too_ closely, cuz that'd just be boring.


	8. Surname

Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

000

**13&14**

"Oi. Shikamaru. Shikamaruuuuu. ShikaShikaShika—"

"Shut up, woman." Shikamaru groaned, batting away the finger that had been poking him for the last thirty seconds.

Ino pouted, "But your gorgeous teammate has just suffered the humiliation of getting a tie against an ugly, pink-haired banshee with an oversized forehead! Surely you should comfort you poor, innocent childhood friend who has the body of a Greek goddess?"

Shikamaru rolled over to face the wall, "No thanks. Your ego seems to be perfectly intact."

Ino fumed, steam spewing out of her nostrils as Chouji and Asuma wisely turned their heads the other way, "How could you be so inconsiderate? Here I am, bruised and bloody with my make up in_ ruins_—" figures she'd put the most emphasis on that part "—while you're just lying there like the lazy ass you are and not even giving so much as a 'You're better than Sakura' as consolation—"

"You're better than Sakura."

"—AND THAT DOESN'T COUNT! First off, there was absolutely _no _sincerity in the way you said that— where's the _sympathy_, the _emotion_?— Second off, you didn't bother to say anything until I practically handed you a manual on How To Not Be An Insensitive Jerk! I swear, you'll never manage to get a girlfriend at this rate, I mean, who would want to date such a lazy, thoughtless, unremarkable—"

Shikamaru snorted at the irony of that statement. Who indeed?

Of course, Ino didn't notice the tiny gesture and continued to rant. The Nara sat up sluggishly; the whole lying down for a quick nap was kind of impossible with his teammate's voice blaring in his ears. He stood up and made his way over to Chouji, leaning on the railing and wordlessly taking a proffered chip. Ah yes, just imagine floating in a blank white space where nothing can touch you, a place rid of any troublesome, blond females and their obnoxiously high-pitched, preteen voices… ("—are you listening to me? ARE YOU LISTENING TO—?").

Having found his inner Zen, Shikamaru had little to do other than reflect on the day's events. Which he really would rather not do (he'd say that today's rating on the troublesome-o-meter was almost high enough to rival the day he was interrogated by Gai-sensei on his intentions towards the jonin's "youthful blossom"), but he didn't have much of a choice if he wanted keep his eardrums intact. He supposed the _day's_ events were more like the _week's_ events, but time was relative in a forest full of oversized fauna that wanted to kill you and eat you for dinner, not necessarily in that order. Oh, and the several dozen bloodthirsty teenagers running around too, can't forget those guys.

Shikamaru rubbed his temples; the more he looked back on it, the more amazed he was that his team had actually managed to survive, let alone qualify for the next round. There were people years older than him who had _killed_ dozens of men already, only to fail the second exam while his team had passed for some unfathomable reason. The closest he'd come to killing anyone was when he'd shoved a certain trio of fanboy-stalkers off a twelve story building, but they were ninjas so they'd managed to survive just fine (bar a few broken bones). Either way, Shikamaru was really starting to doubt a particular bunch of jonins' judgment in letting a bunch of rookies take the chunin exam. The whole ordeal had left him exhausted, from dealing with Ino's complaints on the lack of showers to dealing with Chouji's complaints on the lack of food to dealing with his own internal complaints on the lack of Tenten—

Shikamaru choked on his own spit, startling the rest of his teammates as he started coughing for no particular reason. Where had _that_ come from? Sure, he hadn't really seen her much in the last three days (three days, sixteen hours and forty two minutes, his brain unhelpfully supplied) and he supposed he might've missed her a _little_ bit (read: a lot) but it wasn't like— he didn't really—

The shadow user slammed his forehead onto the railing, skull meeting metal with a dull clang. He inwardly cursed his teenage hormones, completely unaware of the bemused looks his teammates were sending him. It didn't make sense, he'd caught a couple glimpses of her already once the second task was over— hell, she was standing right there, less than fifty feet away from him! Sure, it wasn't the same as actually standing _next_ to her (and talking to her and interacting with her and basking in her presen—) but it should've been enough to satisfy him because Shikamaru was _not_ clingy— no, definitely not, there was no way the lazy Nara was remotely similar those fangirls who stuck to Sasuke like a plague— and it wasn't like this was the first time they'd been separated for more than a few days, they both went on missions so it was perfectly normal to not see each other for a couple weeks at a time (although those times she wasn't skirting around the edges, taunting and teasing and so close yet so far—).

Shikamaru groaned in sudden comprehension. All teams participating in the chunin exam had little to no missions the past several months so they could get time to train (except Team 7, they were just shoved into this mess right after nearly dying on some C turned A rank mission and _what the hell was their jonin sensei thinking_—). Which meant that Shikamaru got to spend uninterrupted time with his lovely, knife toting fiancée for a solid three months. Therefore, his present situation was very much like that of a drug addict going cold turkey.

To put it simply, Shikamaru was having withdrawal symptoms.

The young Nara was really starting to think that women should come with warning labels. CAUTION: Do not take more than five doses per day or you may experience one or more of the following: depression, stomachaches, migraines, blunt force trauma to the head, inexplicable urges to hurt something, bouts of hopeless lovesickness that last for an indefinite period of time—

"Shikamaru, look! The next match is being decided!"

The Nara heir was snapped out of his reverie by Ino's voice, and he noticed that the screen next to the enormous ram seal was a blur of names once more. He really hoped he didn't get matched up with the Suna redhead… or Neji… or the mummy/cyborg hybrid… or _anyone_ for that matter, seriously, he didn't see the point in fighting just to show off.

The screen stilled.

_SABAKU NO TEMARI vs. NARA TENTEN_

Shikamaru was about to groan at having to fight against a girl before he realized that, no, Tenten was not his name, and how the hell did that machine manage to screw up it up so badly that it didn't even have the same number of letters— wasn't Tenten the name of his fiancée—?

It took Shikamaru a remarkably long time to figure out who the machine was referring to given his IQ. Upon reaching the conclusion that it wasn't a Shikamaru twisted into a Tenten but a Tenten with a Nara pasted to the front, the actual Shikamaru's eyebrows rose to a comical height. His head whipped to the side, eyes nervously searching out the weapons mistress. Sure they were _engaged_, but wasn't it a bit presumptuous of him to…

His train of thought sputtered to a halt when he was blinded by a miniature sun.

Well, not a literal sun but Tenten might as well have been one with all the radioactive waves of pure _joy_ she was giving off. She was grinning so widely it seemed like her face was about to split in half and her teeth were glinting more than Lee's and Gai's put together. Shikamaru swore he heard marriage bells ringing somewhere in the distance and he half expected her to start throwing up rainbows and bunny rabbits.

The assembly of jonin looked thoroughly befuddled since they were pretty sure there was only one Nara genin who made it through, not to mention that the bun haired girl didn't look nearly lazy enough to be one. As for her teammates, they were gradually inching away from her (last time she was in one of these moods she'd thrown pointy objects at anything within a five meter radius), while Gai-sensei looked like he was about to cry ("MY YOUTHFUL BLOSSOM WAS A NARA IN DISGUISE AND SHE NEVER TOLD ME?"). Most people were saying it was probably some sort of glitch on the machine's part, god knew how old that thing was. Shikamaru figured it was because of that engagement contract they'd signed some while ago; the clan database probably just added the surname on default since engagement contracts within clans were hardly ever broken.

Tenten caught his eye and sent him a look full of so much I-couldn't-be-more-euphoric-if-I-was-stoned-sky-high vibes that the Nara couldn't help but smile back.

"Oi, Shikamaru, is she a relative of yours or something?" Ino poked him in the side.

"Hm? Something like that," he replied absently, not taking his eyes off the weapons mistress across the room. Ino tried to wave a hand in front of him to catch his attention but promptly froze when she saw the expression on his face. She turned around robotically and went to a corner where she crouched and started muttering to herself ("…must be possessed, no way in hell could the lazy ass himself manage to pull off such a lady killing smile, just remember you've already got Sasuke Ino, Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke…")

"Um… Nara… Tenten? Please come down." The examiner coughed into his fist, the Suna girl already there and tapping her foot impatiently.

"Hai!" Tenten chirped, leaping down from the balcony and completely forgoing the stairs. She bounced on her heels as if she would explode if she stopped moving. The Suna girl raised and eyebrow and she just grinned back cheekily.

"Er… right. Same rules apply. You may be—" The two kunoichi had to catch themselves when the examiner suddenly went into another coughing fit. They stood there awkwardly for twenty seconds before he regained his composure. "You may begin."

The examiner barely had enough time to leap out of the way to avoid a sudden wave of kunai, shuriken, senbon, katana, sickles, rapiers, broadswords, kitchen knives, and practically anything under the sun with a remotely sharp—_ was that a cheese grater?_

Temari, caught off guard by the fact that they were skipping the monologue and going straight to the fighting, whipped out her fan and blasted away the hurricane of weapons with a gust of wind. They went flying in all directions and were about to impale the spectators (Ino screamed but Shikamaru didn't so much as flinch) when they suddenly stopped in midair and swiveled around, manipulated by invisible wires. They floated through the air, forming a deadly hemisphere around the two combatants.

There was a crackle of electricity and suddenly blue lightning was dancing across the dome of weaponry, the metal conducting the charge from one object to the next until it was a blinding, singular mass of spastic energy ("WHO THE HELL TAUGHT HER ELEMENTAL MANIPULATION? SHE'S ALREADY DANGEROUS ENOUGH WITH A BUTTER KNIFE AND A CAN OF HAIRSPRAY!" A suspiciously Neji-like voice shrieked. Shikamaru whistled.)

Temari cursed and brandished her battle fan, bending her knees and bellowing, "Fuuton: Kamaitachi!"

This time the explosion of weapons couldn't be drawn back as Temari's technique ended up severing all the wires, resulting in a hail of razor sharp, electrically charged, very deadly weaponry.

Let's just say the aftermath wasn't pretty.

000

"…and who was the idiot who decided that _wind_ beats _lightning?_ That doesn't even make sense! I'd like to seem someone try and fan a lightning storm and see if they don't get electrocuted to…"

Shikamaru nodded whenever there was a sufficient pause in words, concentrating on peeling the apple in his hands while his hospitalized fiancée continued to rant. It had been an impressive match but in the end, the unfortunate elemental match up decided the victor. Tenten's wounds weren't that serious, but the hospital staff insisted that she stay for a few days anyway (personally, Shikamaru thought her ego was more bruised than anything else).

Which left the young Nara in his current predicament— the fact that he had made it to the final round while his girlfriend… hadn't.

He held up a slice of fruit and she happily chomped down on it.

"By the way," she spoke while chewing, "How did your match go?"

Shikamaru felt a bead of sweat form on his brow, "Um… okay, I guess."

She swallowed, "So you won?"

The Nara tried to decipher her expression but, as usual, found that he couldn't. "…yeah."

"Who're you up against?"

"…Sabaku no Temari."

A not-so-nice grin blossomed on her face and Shikamaru cringed, "Well, you'll just have to avenge me now won't you? Since your gorgeous fiancée has just suffered the humiliation of losing against a blond, arrogant, Suna-nin?"

Shikamaru felt an odd sense of déjà vu.

000

A/N: Erk. First fighting sequence "orz. Um... surprisingly this is actually a sort of continuation of the last oneshot… would that make it a twoshot? o.o


	9. Fire

Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

000

**13&14**

"_There will be a short delay on the final tournament of the chunin exam as we are experiencing some technical difficulties—_"

"—my ass," Neji growled under his breath. It was obvious they were just trying to buy time for a certain late contestant. Actually, make that a certain _two_ contestants who were tardy.

Well, if you really wanted to get technical, three of the contestants were missing, but Neji barely noticed the lack of a mummified cyborg (What was his name again? Doku? Goku?). The fate-obsessed Hyuuga was too busy considering the likelihood that the Nara was late because he overslept. And fuming over the utter gall of the Uchiha brat— the 'main attraction' of today's show. Come one, come all, behold our fire spewing chickadee!

Just because the arrogant rookie had been the only runt deemed too pathetic to kill by a homicidal nutcase of an older brother didn't make him any different from what he'd always been— a _runt_. A prissy, overrated, egotistical runt, but still a runt. With a sorry cockatiel's ass excuse of a haircut too, seriously, how was that even physically possible—

"Sorry!" The sudden gasp of Tenten's voice broke him out of his brooding. "I'm sorry it's my entire fault and I lost track of time and there was this emergency and traffic was really bad and I got lost on the road of life—"

His teammate must be really flustered if she was resorting to the Hatake's poor excuse of an excuse. Not to mention that the state of the day's traffic should be irrelevant as a ninja's primary mode of transportation was jumping across rooftops (you'd think there'd be more than a few complaints from Konoha's residents). Neji sighed and turned around to ask the spazzing weapons mistress just what she was doing down in the arena when several things made him pause.

One, Tenten was not alone. She had the Nara right beside her, just as breathless as she was, but that wasn't anything new; they always seemed to be stuck to each other one way or another but the thing was _Neji hadn't sensed him_. And this was Neji. Three hundred and sixty degree vision, hyperaware, Hyuuga freaking Neji who came from a clan that practically _breathed _paranoia (it's hard not to when all your relatives could see through walls). Not even his jonin-sensei could sneak up on him (then again, it was kind of hard not to notice a full grown man in a green leotard, but you get the idea).

However, Neji didn't have time to ponder this because he was distracted by the fact that, Two, his teammate and the Nara seemed to have swapped outfits. Tenten was donning the lazy genin's typical mesh plus open front shirt while he wore one of her more unisex oriental tops. They both had a distinctly rumpled look, like they'd just rolled out of bed and grabbed whatever clothes were lying closest—

Neji stopped thinking right about there. He was far from dense— hell, he was the one who peeled apart his cousin's thought process in front of a live audience just based on the twitching of her eyes. One glance at the matching rings and their blatant familiarity had Neji concluding that the two were either pulling the most pointless of practical jokes on the rest of Konoha or in a relationship. Of the romantic kind. Of the _procreating_ kind. Yes, Neji did understand the concept of boy-meets-girl-and-babies-are-made. God bless any other poor soul who got The Talk from Konoha's Green Beast (there had been enough youth in that spiel to make Neji want to live the rest of his life out as an eighty year old virgin).

So when he got slapped in the face with the image of two rumpled almost-teenagers flushed and panting— _what were those red marks on her neck— _Neji tried not to make assumptions. Tried.

"Where the hell have you _been_?" Neji hissed at the Nara who had opted to sit cross-legged on the ground, looking exhausted even though the tournament hadn't even started yet.

"Mmgrsff," Shikamaru unhelpfully supplied. The examiner recited rules with the senbon in his mouth bobbing up and down distractingly; the announcer informed the audience that the much anticipated 'Uchiha Pretty Boy versus Psycho Suna Redhead' was being postponed. Much rotten vegetable throwing ensued.

The group of chunin hopefuls, minus Neji and Naruto, trudged towards the staircase that led to the little peanut gallery where they were supposed to wait their turn; all the while, they tried to avoid any produce that went flying in their general direction.

Neji saw the lazy Nara drop down on the single bench available out of the corner of his eye, probably asleep before his back even hit the wood. The white eyed boy sighed and turned back to his opponent. An opponent shrieking like a little girl while only partially successfully dodging the rain of veggies.

Neji pinched the bridge of his nose and willed away the image of his female teammate sleeping with the only genin in Konoha he'd deemed intellectually worthy of his attention and tried to focus on the tomato splattered orange frog hopping spasmodically in front of him.

This was going to be a long day.

000

It was barely a minute before the tournament finally started when Tenten plopped into the seat beside Chouji.

Ino's eyes lit up in recognition, "Hey! You're that…" The blonde, for once, was at a loss for words. Nara who wasn't a Nara? Girl who seemed to mysteriously pop up whenever Shikamaru's around? "…person," she finished lamely.

Tenten gave a sleepy nod in reply and slumped in her seat. "Wake me up when it's Shika's turn," she slurred, soon emanating soft snores.

"…why is she wearing Shikamaru's clothes?"

000

When Neji came to he was greeted with a white ceiling and the smell of antiseptic. He blinked lethargically as the events of the past half hour returned to him.

He'd had his ass handed to him by a rookie dead-last in an orange jumpsuit and, in the process, ended up spouting his entire life's story.

The Hyuuga groaned. The hyperactive blonde always seemed to bring out all the angst and self pity in others. Neji sat up slowly, sore as all hell and his ego even more so. He rested his back against a wall, relaxing minutely. At least it was over. He wouldn't have to deal with any more of this shit for another twenty-four hours minimum.

Then Hiashi walked in through the door.

Neji slammed the back of his head against the wall.

000

Unlike Neji's, Shikamaru's awakening was a bit more abrupt. And painful.

He was half awake when he felt an odd weightless sensation, jolting back to reality when his back collided with the ground. To his credit, he barely even winced.

Shikamaru glared halfheartedly at the whiskered blonde yelling at him to get up, no doubt the reason he was now lying supine on the arena floor. A shadow fell over him and the Nara looked up to see the irritated face of the god forsaken Suna-nin he had to listen to his girlfriend rant on about for the last month.

Forgive him if he seemed a bit resentful.

"Are you ready?" She used a clipped, no nonsense tone that was way too close to his mother's for comfort. He got up in a fashion more suited to an old man than a shinobi and saw his opponent was already underestimating him. Good. That made his job easier. She stalked back to the center of the arena and he followed at a more sedate pace. By the time they were standing across from each other there was a visible tic in her forehead.

The examiner bobbed the senbon in his mouth amusedly at the premature tension. "Begin."

Temari whipped out her fan; no sense in wasting time on small fry. She was just about to let loose a powerful gale but ended up jerking to a stop halfway through her swing.

Her opponent was gone.

Murmurs broke out in the audience while Temari whipped her head side to side, trying to locate her suddenly nonexistent adversary. Meanwhile, Shikamaru was squatting on a tree branch. His head was tilted upwards as if he was cloud watching, but his eyes remained closed. Inhale, exhale— his breath came out slowly and deliberately; despite the micro-nap he just took he still felt exhausted. Then again, if spending twelve hours unconscious hadn't restored his strength, a ten minute nap probably wouldn't do much better.

If he thought about it, this troublesome situation was entirely his fault. For once. He could have just stayed in a hospital bed and forfeited like the lazy ass he was supposed to be, but he just _had_ to decide this was the best time to (poorly) attempt to be a chivalrous, self-sacrificing boyfriend straight out of a cavity-inducing romance novel. This had to be the least rational decision he'd made in his life. Shikamaru supposed there really wasn't much to it other than that he wanted to please his girlfriend.

God he was so whipped. Okay, to make up for this abnormal bout of assertiveness he wasn't going to lift a finger for the next month.

He pulled out a small stack of flash cards, lovingly prepared by his fiancée with sugar and spice and everything that could possibly humiliate the Suna kunoichi he was currently facing off. He skimmed through her hasty scrawls; his memory was impeccable but mini-comas tended to cause even geniuses with IQs over 200 a bit of mental fuzziness. He paused at a flashcard he didn't remember being there before.

_Don't overexert yourself_.

The Nara snorted. This was very likely the first time in his life someone had to tell him _not_ to use too much effort. He slipped the cards back in his weapons pouch and started a sequence of hand signs. His opponent had resorted to arbitrarily launching blades of wind at the surrounding foliage, looking frustrated and all the more pissed off.

_Make her look like she's about to shit a brick._

Check.

"Now, next on the wish list…" Shikamaru mumbled to himself as he completed the jutsu, feeling very much like an avenging Santa Claus.

The arena turned silent. The swaying of the trees, the rustling of leaves, everything became unnaturally still. Temari paused in her crusade to decimate the environment while the audience members all leaned forward in anticipation.

Temari suddenly lurched to the side, dodging a sizable log that had been aimed at her face. More followed where the first led, and soon the kunoichi was doing a frantic job of dodging the chunks of foliage she had been indiscriminately carving up less than a minute ago. Well, that was karma for you. Shikamaru mentally checked off another item in his mental list.

_Make her dance. Like a rabbit on crack. Or a frog having a seizure._

These prompts were really starting to get disturbingly creative. He didn't want to imagine just what kind of mood Tenten was in while she was writing these. The Nara continued to watch his opponent with detachment befitting of a shinobi, counting down the seconds before she snapped. Five, four, three—

"_Show your face you coward!_" She gave her fan a mighty swing, blowing back the wooden debris in an impressive display of strength. Huh, it seems he'd overestimated her patience.

Shikamaru carefully watched the subsequent explosion of flying sticks and twigs. This part was crucial— he had to find the one location where the wind currents twisted and slid against each other, the site essential for him to take advantage of her attack and turn it against—

"There," he breathed, pinpointing the figurative chink in the armor. His hands sped through seals with more fluidity than he was known to be capable of, completing a jutsu people _definitely_ wouldn't believe him skilled enough to execute.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu," Shikamaru muttered, refusing to reveal his location by bellowing out the jutsu's name like a certain Uchiha genin. The ball of flame he emitted was nowhere near as impressive as the ones produce by said Uchiha, but it didn't need to be. By the time Temari noticed the attack, the fireball had reached its destined location.

As any academy student could tell you, fire dominated wind. Although from another point of view, you could also say wind _fed_ the fire. A small detail the Nara was going to take advantage of.

The fire attack grew, the tiny ball increasing in volume until it rivaled, if not surpassed, the size of those formed by seasoned fire practitioners. All the timber lying around only served to further fuel the inferno. The Suna-nin's previous efforts to blow back the wooden projectiles had created a ring of dead tree matter around her, a trap she'd practically set for herself. Soon enough, she was surrounded on all sides, and Shikamaru was making his way towards her from the tree line.

_Light everything on FIRE._

Tenten really did have a flair for the dramatics.

Temari glared at him through the flames while the crowd cheered. There had to be at least some people in the audience who saw the irony in a shadow user having a fire affinity. The Nara had been baffled himself when he found out; people from his clan typically had earth or water affinities, reflecting stability of character and flexibility in dealing with obstacles (although his mother was convinced they symbolized laziness and the tendency to avoid work). There would be an occasional wind affinity for the particularly easygoing Nara who came along, but never _fire_. Fire was passion, fire was temper, fire was an _Uchiha _thing. He had a niggling thoughtthat, through some twisted, subconscious sense of protectiveness, he felt the need to defend his girlfriend. As her element was lightning, she was vulnerable to wind, so in order to account for that he became wind's weakness: fire. And from a logical point of view, he was spouting a load of symbolic crock.

In short, this was all Tenten's fault.

He was standing only a few feet away from his opponent now, a wall of flames separating them. Temari continued to send him looks much more scalding than the conflagration between them would ever be, while Shikamaru rummaged through his weapon's pouch. He procured a note card that had a considerable amount of text written on it.

The Nara cleared his throat and began:

"To the Suna-nin who should by now be in some sort of humiliating and/or shameful position thanks to my lovely fiancé," he swore he heard Temari growl, "this is a message from a certain, well-meaning kunoichi. I'll keep this short. Kindly take back your blasphemous, wholly untrue ravings on how, and I quote, 'A weapons-based fighting style is -insert derogatory term-,' and I won't sic my super awesome fire wielding, shadow bending boyfriend on you. Good day."

Most of that came out in a complete monotone as Shikamaru wasn't exactly suited for projecting "righteous anger." However, the insulting tone was not lost on the captive Suna-nin, who vehemently refused to do any such thing.

_How to prepare a disobedient sand kunoichi: Keep on low heat, gradually increasing the temperature until it makes an "OKI'MSORRYTENTENSAMA" sound._

Shikamaru tried to ignore the cannibalistic images coming to mind. He sighed and put his fingers in a ram seal, the shadows from his surroundings converging on the ring of fire and shrinking it until the flames were only centimeters from the his opponent. Temari was starting to sweat, he expression clearly showing her ego and self-preservation instinct waging war. Shikamaru maintained an unaffected air, but he was _really_ hoping the stubborn woman would just cave already— he could feel his chakra diminishing at an uncomfortable rate. The technique he was using was particularly draining, mainly because it wasn't one, but two techniques he sloppily mashed together no less than three days ago. He hadn't found an effective way to mesh the two hand sign sequences, so now he had to settle for performing both at once: Kage Kubishibari to act as an overarching, physical restraint and Kage Yose for fine-tuned control over any particularly rebellious flames. Furthermore, these were only bastardized versions he derived from watching his dad perform a few times, so Shikamaru could be doing them completely wrong for all he knew. Either way, _couldn't the woman just swallow her pride and give in already!_

He made the flames inch closer menacingly, singeing a few strands of her hair. Temari gritted her teeth.

"I… I take back what I said." The way she put it sounded more like a threat than an apology. Either way, it was good enough for Shikamaru, and he promptly smothered the flames before releasing the technique.

Shikamaru waved an arm in the proctor's direction, "Hey."

Genma raised an eyebrow.

"I forfeit."

And Shikamaru passed out.

000

A/N: Well, I guess I'm trying my hand a foreshadowing (pastshadowing?). This really is becoming less and less of a oneshot collection OTL. Um... I'll (probably) tie up all the loose ends in the next chapter.

On another note, this fic now has fanart! Sandra Phillips drew some adorable pictures of Shikamaru and Tenten:

sandra phillips (replacewithdot) deviant art (replacewithdot) com /art/ Shikamaru-Smiling-310906588?q=gallery%3Asandraphillips%2F37908733&qo=36  
>sandra phillips (replacewithdot) deviant art (replacewithdot) com art/ Ten-Ten-310906242?q=gallery%3Asandraphillips%2F37908733&qo=35

Go check out her work! (And thank her since her PM was probably half the reason I got off my lazy ass to continue writing XD)


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